Terry and the Pirate

Hey y'all, I'm turning the blog over to Aquaman for this Sunday's entry. Why? I don't know, he's been a real crybaby lately and claims that he needs to write an entry. So, being the nice guy that I am, I'm letting him.

Thanks, assclown. Hey everyone, it's your old buddy AM kicking it new school. I haven't written about her since my first entry back in August, but the other day I got a call from my publicist Terry. She sounded pretty excited, so I was intrigued by what I thought was going to be good news.

"Aquaman, I'm so glad I caught you," she said.

"Hey Terry, baby, tell me you got me that cover on Field & Stream!"

"Uh, I'm still working on that AM. I've got a huge favor to ask you."

This was it, despite the fact that I'm married to that beached whale Mera, I've been wanting to drop anchor in Terry for a long time. The one thing that really blows is that she's been dating Black Vulcan for a while, but I think after I do this favor for her, she'll be bound to see what a great guy I am.

Look at this guy, does he deserve a babe like Terry?



Of course not, he deosn't even wear pants!

"Sure, baby, tell Aquaman all of your problems, I'll be able to help."

"Well, my aquarium needs cleaning, and I thought you might be able to do it."

What the fuck? Me? Aquaman, clean an aquarium? Does she remember the press release that she wrote about me stopping those starfish poachers? How about that time that me and a few zebra fish got that guy who was illegally trapping lobsters? Does she think that I can just do what ever she wants?

"Puuuuhhhhhhhh-lease, AM? That algae is scary."

"Why don't you get Black Vulcan to do it? That's more of a boyfriend job isn't it?"

"You know he can't go near the water, he'll electricute himself."

It's true, BV can't go near the wet stuff, it's literally been years since he took a shower, which gave me an idea.

"Sure, I'll be over in a jiff!"

By the time I got there, Black Vulcan was crashed out on the couch and the aquarium was on a table right behind him. I said hello to Terry and went to work. As I picked up the aquarium I began to think of the best way to dump the contents on Vulcan. Should I pretend to trip? How about I say that a bee was on my leg? Maybe I'll just throw it on him.

Just then I got a communication from an angel fish, she said if I dumped the water on Black Vulcan not only would the world lose a hero, but the fish would die too. For you see, fish need water to live. This was something I was unaware of and since I like fish more than I like people, I decided to let Black Vulcan live ... for now.

After I clean the aquarium, I said good bye to Terry and Black Vulcan. That bastard didn't know how close he came to getting the ultimate shocker.

Lazy Saturdays are okay ... and a new feature

First the new feature. A few days ago on SOSH, there was a thread about about former roommates, specifically the weirdest or the worst ones you ever had. It got me thinking of my old roomie Jim. He wasn't an asshole or anything, but he was a bit strange. I am going to start retelling a few Jim stories, they're pretty funny and the best part is that they're all 100% true.

Here's one of Ryan's favorites: When we were juniors Jim started to follow the lead of my other two roommates and got into the music and culture of Phish. He had the whole look down, beard, shaggy hair, flannel, the works. A bunch of them decided to go up to Maine, get a hotel, eat some mushrooms and go off to the show. Since I didn't go to the concert, I'm retelling the story second hand.

There was about seven dudes up there crammed in a room, they got a pizza, sprinkled the shrooms on top and started eating. Just about everyone had a good trip (from what I hear mushrooms give you an elongated high where you're just happy). Everyone except Jim. Jim locked himself in the bathroom and just stared at himself in the mirror. Every once in a while he'd start bawling and talking to himself.

I think Jim left a bit of himself up in Maine that day, as for the rest of the year he was a shell of his former self. To be honest, I was planning on eating a couple of caps the next weekend, but when I saw what happened to Jim, I stayed away from anything harder than pot.

As you can tell from the time that I'm posting this entry, it's mid afternoon and I'm sort of bored. I got the "Faith Rewarded" DVD on Thursday, so I'm watching that. Obviously, it's good stuff. Some times I forget that the Sox won, because it's so unbelievable that it happened.

Last night Aly and I, along with Skaus, Sara, Nick and Debbie went to the Celts game against the Suns. The game was pretty good, the Celts got smoked, but we got a nice Walter McCarty bobble head doll. Then we went out to play pool at the Boston Beer Works. We stayed out until about 1 am, which is the latest Aly and I have been out in a lonjg damn time. Needless to say we were really tired this morning.

Woke up sort of early adn tried to get Sox tickets, I thought I was going to get a shortcut password from SOSH, but the site was down and I couldn't get shit. This is the biggest problem wiht the Sox, tehy play in a bandbox and they're too damn popular. I have four tickets already ... I want more. The thing is, all of New England does too.

I'm getting hate mail

I love it. One of the best thing about writing is getting letters. Letters telling you that you're doing a good job are fine, I like those very much, but my favorite messages are the ones that say I'm a dope.

Check this one out, it's about my review of "Dodgeball".

WHAT U SAID ABOUT THE DOGEBALL MOVIE REALLY MADE ME MAD. I KNOW EVERYONE IS INTITLED TO THERE OWN OPINIONS AND HERES MINE. I THOUGHT THE MOVIE WAS GREAT AND BEN STILLER IS A GREAT ACTOR ESPECIALLY IN MEET THE FOCKERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! U SOUND LIKE THE LOSER

Here's what I like best about this email, the CAPS. I'm being yelled at, over Dodgeball! That's the best thing ever. The person didn't sign his or her name to the letter, but I'd guarantee it's a girl that wrote this. Don't ask me why, I just think that a chick would write this, rather than a dude.

Imagine getting that pissed over someone's review of a movie? They actually used the word "mad", just little kids use that word, right? The coolest thing is when she told me that I am entitled to my opinion and then gives me hers, and I didn't even ask for it. Awesome. Just awesome.

If you are reading this, please write again. I am begging you. If my computer was on the floor, I'd be writing this on my hands and knees.

Another cool thing happened today, I was on the Boston Dirt Dogs website, and there was a headline that read, "Sox to change uniforms, according to reliable SOSH source." Yours truly is that source. Kind of neat, I guess. Basically, I was on a baseball uniform site and there is a Sox intern on there who said that it would probably happen. I posted and it gets picked up.

The Dirt Dog site is an interesting one. It was started by a rabid (no pun) Sox fan as an alternative to the daily papers. It's now a part of Boston.com, so while it was once the alternative, it is now one of the mainstream media. Just goes to show that this Internet thing can be lucrative.

The guy who runs it, Steve Silva, seems like a good guy. I met him at a SOSH outing a few years ago and he was the last guy I saw at Fenway before I got booted out. Remind me to tell you that story some time, it's actually pretty funny.

If you want to check it out, go to

Not much happened since Monday except that we got more snow today. Another eight to ten inches. And I feel like a true hypocrite as for the first time ever I used a chair to hold a spot I dug out. There's a story behind it though:

I got home around 6:15 and saw that there was a spot up the street from my place, except I had to dig it out. Took me a few minutes, but I did it. Put the old car in spot and then went inside. I had to pick Aly up an hour later, so I brought the chair out and put it where the car was while I went to Boston to get her.

It felt sort of weird doing this, I thought that I would never do it, but I needed to ... mainly because I'm lazy. As I was walking down the street with the chair, people were asking me "Where ya goin' wit da chair?" and "Save that spot, buddy!" I never understood the chair phenomena, but I guess now I do. Good for me.

Last thing, yesterday I got 70 visitors to 19 Thoughts, thank you very much. If you like it, tell a friend. If you don't, keep it a secret, but still check it every day. It'll be just between you and me ... I promise.

The GREAT blizzard of 05

In this instance the meaning of the word great is used as large, not better than good.

Let me get this on the table right now, I hate snow. I hate everything about snow: the cold, the wet, the way it impacts daily life, the additional time it takes to do mundane tasks. I hate it all.

Saturday, I awoke and went to get my haircut. As I was sitting in the chair, the barber was telling me about how today we're supposed to get 24 inches, I was like sure whatever. I hadn't seen the weather report, so I thought he was exaggerating much like he was about his partner who had a burst appendix and the amount of time this guy was out of the shop grew from one week to two and a half weeks in about ten minutes. The barber was really pissed that this guy was out that long and said, "If I burst my appendix when I was his age, my father would've told me to do it on a Sunday so I wouldn't miss a day of work."

Sometimes curmudgeons are funny.

After that Aly and I went to check out a place on Highland St. in Somerville. Nice apartment, fairly big, close enough to the T and Davis Square (though Aly wishes it was a bit closer) and the price is awesome. $250 less per month than other places we were looking at. I want to jump on it, but Aly is being a bit more cautious. Hopefully, we'll have a resolution soon.

After that we visited with Father Brian about the results of our compatibility tests that we took back in October. Good news, we passed. We spent an hour and a half talking about the results and what we expect from our relationship and from each other and our friends and family. It was actually really good. Very cathartic to get some things off my chest and listen to what someone else had to say about what I'm feeling.

Fr. Brian is a pretty cool guy, so it's easy to open up to him. We did this all in the St. Mary's rectory, which is like every other rectory I've ever been to, really freaking nice. A lot of people give priestly life a bad rap, but I bet it's not so bad. You get up say Mass, talk to some people, listen to confessions and then go to bed. Everyone is trying to buy their way into heaven, so they bring you food all the time, let you use their vacation homes, no taxes. Of course, there are some shitty parts too: the no sex thing, visiting sick and dying people, being on call 24 hours and funeral masses. I don't know, doesn't sound too bad to me (except for the no sex thing ... that blows [no pun])

After that, we went to the mall. I felt like scaring the crap out of myself so I bought a book about ghosts. If I really wanted to give myself a good scare I should just look at my credit card bill. Also, Brownie called to tell me that he and Cindy were canceling with us tonight. There's no snow as of 4 pm and I think he's being a bit paranoid, but that's ok. It'll be an Aly and Byron night ... we haven't had one of those in a while.

So, we start making our plans for the night and all of a sudden I look outside and it is coming down fast. Damn, this looks pretty bad, I thought to myself. No big deal, we'll just camp out in Brookline and it'll be all nice and romantic like. We plan to walk to a new restaurant called Pomodoro that we've been dying to try. I suggest that we should get a few bottles of wine since we're not going anywhere, Aly agrees. First we go to the Brookline Police Station so I can get my $10 per night parking pass. Sucks that you have to pay $10 a night, but you can't park on the street in Brookline, so this is what you have to do.

I walk in to the station and see a cop, here is the exchange:

Me: You're still selling parking passes tonight, right?
Cop: No.
Me: Huh? Why not?
Cop: Snow emergency.
Me: Ok. Where am I supposed to park?
Cop: Don't know.
Me: I can't park on the street, right?
Cop: Yup.
Me: I can't park in the lot, right?
Cop: Yup.
Me: Then what am I supposed to do?
Cop: Don't ask me.

Ok. Good answer, dick. You're a cop. You're supposed to know what to do. Ugh. So, I tell Aly to pack for a few days, we're going back to Somerville. Something that neither of us wanted to do for two reasons. My apartment is completely falling apart, aside from mice and exploding pipes, we saw that the roof looks as if it is separating from the house. So it's fucking freezing downstairs, but it's like Jamaica upstairs.

Also, Josh and Eddie are having their annual post-Christmas party. Last year was the first year that they had it and it was a disaster. Some guy literally threw his girlfriend across the room when she playfully grazed his neck with a tack. Then some girl drank way too much and laid in the middle of the road and passed out so cold that they had to call an ambulance. And the beer is shit, the buy a keg of Milwaukee's Best, so I'm sitting around my house with a bunch of strangers drinking really crappy brew. No thanks.

Luckily, because of the snow, there was like 10 people there. Not too bad for the time we stayed. Aly and I decided to head out to grab some grub. We've been wanting to try this shady-looking Italian place near Old Magoon's Saloon called Vinnie's. We've heard such awesome things from a cross section of people that we had to check it out. Very good. We ended up getting a bottle of wine and some good food. Despite the walk through the blizzard, it was well worth it. We also had to beg the owner to keep the place open so we could eat.

On the way home, Aly and I got into argument about something really stupid, so we just went straight up to my room to hash it out. It took a bit, but we did. And I think the tension that both of us have been feeling for the last three weeks has dissipated. The thing is, we're both so similar in a lot of ways that we but heads some time. And though I like to pretend I'm all laid back and stuff, I'm not. I'm stubborn, set in my ways and not to mention a hyper passive aggressive who can hold a grudge like no one's business. Which combined with Aly's passion, stubbornness and aggressiveness can lead to some good bouts.

But, like I said, things are good now.

We both woke up in very good spirits on Sunday, despite the promise of two feet of snow. Yes, two feet of snow in Somerville (there was 38 inches in Salem/Marblehead). Two feet in Amesbury sucks, but in Somerville it's choking. The streets are already tiny and littered with cars, so travel is an adventure. At about 1:00 we got the wild idea to spend the day making chili, so we took a walk to the grocery store. We bought a lot of ingredients because in 162 Central all four dudes have girlfriends, which I had no idea about, so there were an extra couple of people in the house. (Andrew and his woman weren't here, they were snowed in in DC).

Aly and I walked to the store, which wasn't too bad and after I brought the groceries inside I decided to dig my car out. Before that, a musing on how people are just dicks, Aly spotted a dude in a Yankees sweat shirt and cap and said, "Go Yanks!" and I just shook my head. He said, "What are you shaking your head for?" Mind you I'm wearing a Sox 2004 World Series cap on my head. I just said something like, "The Yankees."

"Yeah, what about them?"

"They suck," I was getting sort of pissed because the guy was being a dick.

"I have 26 Championship rings, how many do you have?" Actually, you have none.

"You don't have last year's, good work in the playoffs," I retorted (I came up with a million other things to say to this guy after -- which is always the case -- but I was honestly surprised by how much of a cock he was.)

"Yeah, we'll get you next year, don't worry. You were lucky."

"I really doubt that."

Even Aly was like, "Man that guy was an asshole." Typical big mouthed Yankee fan, I said.

So I started shoveling at 3:00 and didn't go inside until 5:00. Two hours it took me, but there were a few reasons. I parked on Browning St., which is a side street off of the road where I live. I had my entire car dug out when a guy who owns a place on that road walked over to me.

Guy: Hey, you're not supposed to park there during snow emergencies.
Me: Really? I didn't know that, thanks for the tip.
Guy: You're lucky you didn't get towed.
Me: Yeah. No kidding.
Guy: I called last night. I called the tow truck on all of your cars on this street (there were at least seven).
Me: Are you serious? Why would you do that?
Guy: Rules are rules.
Me: Are you going to call again tonight?
Guy: Sort of late now, isn't it?
Me: Whatever.

Why would this guy do that? Why would you be a fucking dick during a snow storm? I just stared at that guy for like two minutes with a complete look of disgust and contempt. Dude, it's a snow EMERGENCY, people need to park their cars some place, have a fucking heart. So, to combat towing or a ticket, I went on Central St. and scouted for a spot. Luckily I found one and dug it out. The problem was I had to move my car from it's present spot to the newly dug out place. That's when Aly became invaluable.

She came outside and stood in the space until I could get my car there. And that was about a half hour. Why, you may ask? Because all of the cocksuckers on Browning Street decided to blow all of the snow from their driveways into the street. This made driving a gigantic chore. My car would move two feet and then get stuck, so I would have to get out, shovel five feet out, get back in, drive and then shovel. Not easy. I did manage to get in my spot and when I got there this morning, the car looked fine.

Another thing happened yesterday, these two chicks spent as much time as I did digging their car out of the snow and were just about done when a town snow plow came buy. It took all of the snow it had on it's front end and dumped it right on their car. Just completely reburried it. The women were justifiably pissed off and started yelling at the guy. Being a dick town employee, the guy said (in the most condescending way), "Sweetie, where do you want me to put the snow? I didn't make it snow." The girls were like, quit being a dick and have a heart. The guy said something about them not being real women because they spoke like that, and one girl said that he wasn't a real human being. He took off after that and they had to redig their car out.

Such a dick move.

I don't have to be at work until noon today and I'm debating whether to go in at all. Driving was treacherous this morning when I had to bring Aly to the T. Normally, a 10-minute drive at worst, it took me about an hour. Cars were sliding all over the place, small hills were tough to go up and trying to find a parking spot is going to just suck.

Well, those are some snapshots of a disastrous weekend where three out of every four people were dicks. New Englanders are just assholes, there's no getting around it and situations like this bring out the worst in people (except for the guy who pushed my car up a hill this morning), but at least the Patriots are going to the Super Bowl. They're playing the Eagles, which sort of sucks because if they played the Falcons, Aly's brother would've gone and covered the event. He also would've written a story about growing up in the shadows of Foxborough, which I would've really liked to read because he was a New York Giants fan and those years where he became a football fan, the Pats sucked and were a distant fourth in the consciousness of New England fans.

Oh yeah, Friday night I saw "Napoleon Dynamite". Not that good of a movie. I was really looking forward to seeing it, I don't want to go far as saying it sucked, but it just wasn't very good. Ok. Now I'm done.

A bunch of stuff ... you figure it out

Things are going pretty well: work is going ok (I hope I didn't jinx myself), I think I might be getting a raise soon. Things with Aly are fine, we've been on edge a bit lately because we're both sick of living in different places, but we may be solving that problem by the end of Sunday.

On Saturday, we're looking at three places (two in Salem, one in Somerville) and we're looking at an apartment in Brookline on Sunday. Right now, if we had to, we could pull the trigger on a place on the Brookline/Brighton border. I think I may have told you about this on Monday. In any event, it's a pretty cool place. Big living room, big bed room, a refurnished thoroughly modernized kitchen.

Aside from where it is, it could be the perfect place. I told the chick who has the place to keep it for us until Sunday. I honestly doubt that we'll see anything better that we'd both like, so that's why I think we should take this place. We'll see how it goes.

So I originally started this entry about how boring and lame my life is because not much is going on, but that's not the worst thing in the world. I reread what I wrote and realized things aren't too bad. Shit is really starting to fall into place and while it may be fucking cold out right now (a low of 5 today. FUCKING FIVE!) it's goign to be summer pretty soon which means baseball.

I am jonesing for baseball so hard, I actually watched Game Three of the 1986 World Series tonight. NESN is actually doing a pretty cool thing this winter, they've been rerunning 1975, 1986 and the entire 2004 post seasons in order. They are up to the Mets series.

It's really strange to watch a game from Fenway in 75 and 86, looks like a completely different park. No rightfield roof box seats, no Monster seats, no ads anywhere and in 75 there wasn't any padding on the outfield walls. And the players look so scrawny. The one good thing is that they're using the actual feeds from the networks that ran the games, that means tonight Vin Scully and Joe Garrigiola are talking.

Much better than Joe Buck and Tim McCarver. You know what Vin and Joe G. do? They actually let you watch the fucking game sometimes and they don't say two words. And, the best thing, they don't moralize about every fucking thing that happens in the park. Example:

Joe B: Well, Tim, there's a guy who's eating a hot dog with ketchup on it.
McCarver: Ketchup? Are you kidding me? I'm sorry, but that's just wrong, Joe. Plain old wrong.
Joe B: I know. Folks, I'm sorry that you have to watch this. A man eating a frankfurter with ketchup smeared on it. Disgusting.
McCarver: Terrible. Terrible. Bad day for baseball. Worst thing I've ever seen.
Joe B: Unbelievable. By the way Johnny Damon hits a grandslam. But back to the hot dog ...

Shut the fuck up. Joe G. and Vin just talk about the game. They don't try to be funny, well maybe Joe G. does a bit, but they know (and this is the most important thing) that they're not the stars of the broadcast, the ballplayers are. Ok, rant over.

I'm also in the midst of watching, "I Love the 90s, Part Deux". I'm not usually a big fan of the sequel, but I have to admit, this is better than the first one. It seems as if they've taken more time with this one. They didn't try to jam in as many things in this one as they did the last one. Also, the guests are a bit better and they're not trying to be THE funny guy/girl. They're just talking and it's better, sounds more off the cuff, less scripted.

The Sportsguy, Bill Simmons, is in this one too. He's a funny dude, the first SoSHer to be on network TV ... though there is a guy on SoSH (I think it's Muggsy Jock) who is a producer on this show. Good egg, that MJ ... I wonder if he's going to the SoSH bash in the summer.

I'm actually at my parents' house tonight, sort of a good thing mainly because there was a rumor that there was a dirty bomb in Boston somewhere. I think this was not a hoax, but maybe just bad information because nothing has happened so far. Also, the pipes under our sink exploded, so we're not using our kitchen sink for a bit.

Well, that's about it for tonight. Talk to you later.

Talkin' about MLK Day

This is going to be sort of a disjointed 19 Thoughts today, the reason being I'm watching 24 as I'm typing. This show is so damn engrossing.

Anyway, the weekend wasn't a bad one. Didn't do a hell of a lot, Aly still isn't feeling well, so it was a slow one. The good thing is, I needed a slow weekend, ever since before the holidays it's been bang-bang-bang busy.

Friday night Danna and Rick came over, even though they live in New York, we've been seeing them a lot lately, which is cool. The reason why they came down this time is because Aly needed Danna to get her bridesmaid dress. That's what they did on Saturday. Rick and I literally did nothing. We watched a couple of movies, saw the beginning of the Steelers/Jets game and had some pizza. Not a bad day.

Saturday night we all went to dinner with Stacy and Anthony in Harvard Square. The restaurant was called the Red House, and it wasn't that great. The food was overpriced and not very good and the service was lousy. Really some of the worst I've ever seen.

Sunday Aly and I went to look at two places, both were in Brookline. For the second time, the landlord of one place blew us off. I was pissed, so I called the dude. He made up some bullshit excuse and said that he'd be there in ten minutes. I told him that's all he had and we left when he didn't show up on time. Two minutes after that, he called saying that he was there. I told him we weren't and he lost a renter.

The other place was way too tight, though Aly really liked it. Looking for places fucking blows. After that I went over Ryan's to watch the Pats game. They won, they beat the vaunted Colts. Every "expert" picked the Pats to get crushed. They didn't. They were the ones who did the crushing. Great game and it's going to be a tough one next weekend.

Sunday night we did nothing. Monday we looked at two more places, another in Brookline which was really nice and one in Somerville. I liked both places, but the one in Somerville I liked better. It is close to Harvard, which I think would be awesome to live near and the place had a lot of space. Aly wasn't too wild about it, but we got other places to look at soon.

The journey continues ...

BTW, you may notice that I have a new counter, it's to keep track of who actually reads this site. Last Tuesday I put it up and set it at 500 prior views (probably a lot less, but ...). Also, I was able to get some marketing software to see who is actually reading the site. It's cool. So, I'm watching you. =)

More 2004 Year in Review Stuff

Last week I got Ryan to do a review of his favorite CDs from 2004, now I'm going to do a review of the movies I've seen in this year. I'm going to break it down into three different categories:

Movies I Saw at a Theater
Movies I Got Off of Pay-Per-View
Movies I Rented and/or Bought

Why those three categories? Because although I didn't see a ton of flicks this year, especially compared to years past, there are still a bunch and one giant list may become unweildly. And I'm not going to write massive reviews, probably one to two sentences, unless I really liked it or really hated it. Since most of the movies released this year has an "ahhh, whatever" quality, this will probably be a bunch of short entries.

I'm going to try and grade each movie on a scale of one to five Jerry Matherses. I couldn't decide whether to go with young, cute Beaver or gawky, dorky old Jerry, so I compromised and went with the gawky, teenage Beave.

MOVIES I SAW AT A THEATER:

Alexander Probably not as bad as everyone says it is, but there are enough shitty parts to make this movie unwatchable. Not unbearable, there's a difference. I'll never watch this movie again, but it wasn't so bad the first time.



Anchorman : The Legend of Ron Burgundy This movie was awesome. Tons, and I mean tons, of laughs. Not to mention a weird ass story and an actual good cameo by Ben Stiller. This dude is quickly becoming my movie Public Enemy Number One ... and not in the cool way that Public Enemy was cool.



Kill Bill VOL. 2 If Quinten Tarrantino had never written, filmed and produced "Pulp Fiction" this would've been his greatest flick. But he did, so it comes in a very respectful number two. I like the plot in this one better than volume one and the action was still kick ass.




The Life Aquatic With Steven Zissou Am I glad I saw this movie? Yes. Would I see it again? I'm not rushing out to buy it when it comes to DVD. Like most Wes Andersen flicks, I enjoyed it but I didn't love it. Funny. But not "ha-ha" funny.




National Treasure You like popcorn? This is what is called a popcorn adventure flick. Why? Because it's light and fluffy. It was like "Indiana Jones" lite. Not the worst thing I've seen, I'd probably see it again.




Ocean's Twelve This is just like "National Treasure" except there was about 15 times the star power. Catherine Zeta-Jones looked hot as usual. Everyone else looked like they were having fun. I like fun flicks. So sue me.




Shrek 2 This movie was ok. I hate Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz and John Lithgow. I think they're all a bunch over acting hacks. And Shrek 2 was the same as Shrek 1. Except that I paid $10 to see it. That blows.




Spider-man 2 Probably the best movie I saw all year. That's saying something, I guess. Being a former comic book geek, the flick stayed true to its roots. The CGI was pretty awesome. The plot was kick ass, the acting was good, the dialog was passable and the action was awesome. Great flick.




Super Size Me This is the primary reason why I rarely eat at fast food burger joints any more. I think I only went seven times last year. That used to be a bad (or good) month for me. This dude sort of went over board on some things, but as far as documentaries go, it was pretty good.




The Village Like Alexander, it wasn't as bad as people said. Not as good other M. Night Shemalyan (spelling?) movies, but it was good. The one thing is that he should quit trying to give us a twist at the end. They're getting a tad predictable.



MOVIES I GOT OFF PAY-PER-VIEW


Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story Terrible fucking movie. Just beyond bad. Horrible. Ben Stiller sucks. There. I said it. He's over exposed and he just blows. And I used to think his wife, Christine Taylor, was hot. Now I know she's just a crappy actress. And Vince Vaughn was sleep walking through this movie.




Saved! This was kind of a funny movie. A little over the top and a little cliched, but it was funny. That's all I ask is that a movie entertain me. Is that too much? Plus, Mandy Moore looked hot and seeing Mulchaley (spell?) Culkin in a wheelchair was kind of weird.




The Stepford Wives Worse than Dodgeball. I almost asked for my money back. Putrid movie with a bunch of people who just didn't give a fuck. Terrible.

NO BEAVERS.

MOVIES I RENTED AND/OR BOUGHT


The Manchurian Candidate I saw this before I saw the original. The original is better. This was a bit more drawn out, but Denzel did a better job of acting than Sinatra. There were a few scenes that were a bit over the top, but that's drama in the 21st Century, I suppose.





Mean Girls It's not Citizen Kane, but you know I don't think it was supposed to be. Hot chicks, some semblence of a plot, made me laugh once or twice. Well, that pretty much sums up the year in movies for 2004. Tina Fey smugly smirked her way through this entire movie, sort of like she does every weekend during Saturday Night Live. Yeah, that's not getting old. But she wasn't in it that much.



Until next year, amigos.

Normally, I don't usually do this ...

What I'm talking about is posting from work, but since my boss isn't here and it's sort of a slow day, I'm going to try and catch up on some stuff that happened over the weekend.

First, I forgot about the band on Friday night at the office Christmas party. They were called Horizons and we were thinking about them for our wedding. They had a good set going, doing all of the traditional stuff and they sounded pretty good. The make up of the group (and this is important for the story) were four white guys and a white chick.

All of a sudden, the lead singer (and keyboardist) dips into a bag, pulls out a White Sox hat, puts it on backwards and a pair of Raybans. Then you hear nine words that should never have come out of this dude's mouth, even if he was in the shower, "I like big butts and I can not lie."

They started singing or rapping, whatever, Sir Mix A Lot's "Baby Got Back". It was embarrassing, I said to someone, "Sir Mix A Lot is rolling over in his grave," but they didn't think that was funny. Somewhere Henny Youngman is rolling over in his grave. Needless to say, that crossed a band off our list. To paraphrase SML, "They had (no) game so we chose to hit 'em."

Saturday was a day of looking at apartments, we started in lovely Waltham where the place was nice, the landlord sort of goofy but cool, but it would be a big pain for Aly to get into her office. So, we put the kibosh on that. Our next appointment was in the North End, so we hightailed it from Waltham to Boston, through a minor snowstorm. When we found a place to park and located the apartment, we called the woman who owned the place.

"Gee, I was hoping that you'd blow me off. My boyfriend gave the (apartment) keys to the realtor and they're closed for the weekend. I can't show you the place."

Thanks for telling us, bitch. Really, that was fucking real sweet of you. So, we're looking at this place on Thursday again, but unless she pays us to take it, I doubt that we'll move in there. People are fucking dumb.

Saturday night, Aly and I went out with Ryan (the very same Ryan from Ryan's Record Review), Kristen, Keri and Byrnie. We were originally supposed to go to a bar-b-que place in Methuen, but because of the weather (it was really snowing pretty badly up there) it was closed. We ended up going to Bugaboo Creek, which wasn't too bad. I got a nice steak and it was all good. After that we just went back to Rye's place, which is fucking awesome and just hung out for a few hours.

Sunday, Aly had a Christmas lunch with her friends, so I was able to get some stuff done, including my last strip. This means that all I have to do is get my scanner up and running and bring it over to Nick so we can upload this thing. I'm probably going to get the scanner set up on Monday (I have the day off for MLK). After that Andrew took me, Josh and Eddie to the Capital Grille for our Christmas meal.

Jesus, this was awesome. Drew got us a kick-ass bottle of wine, we all got steaks and appetizers and desserts, the whole Magilla. I'm not sure how much it cost, but he insisted that he pay. It was an unbelievably nice thing to do. When he emailed us about it on Tuesday, I was completely shocked. And to add to his gratitude he asked how our honeymoon plans were going and I told him how we needed 6,000 more miles to get a free ticket to Hawaii.

Without a second thought he said, "I'll give you the six K. Don't worry about it."

Nice? Generous? Those words can't even begin to describe Andrew Bannon. Aly and I are planning to take him and his girlfriend out to a Washington Nationals game and dinner in April, but that's not even going to begin to make up for what he's done. The one thing that this Blog has shown me is that my friends are incredible people, I only hope that I can be half as good to them as they are to me.

Monday we looked at another place, this one was just outside of Porter Square. It wasn't too bad, a bit small for my tastes, but not too bad. The one thing that I'm concerned about is how Aly will get to the T. It's a seven-minute walk to the station, but it's through a sketchy neighborhood. Also, Aly didn't like the looks of the outside of the building.

The whole place reminded me of a college dorm room. I think this may be our last resort place. We're supposed to look at a place in Brookline tonight, hopefully that one will be a bit better.

Tomorrow, I'm going to be at my parents' place, so that is where I'm going to give a wrap up of the movies I saw this year. I bet you guys can't wait.

The three R's and other junk

Since it's the beginning of 2005, I'm going to look back on 2004 with reviews on books, movies and TV shows. Today it's music, but I'm not going look at it, my good friend Ryan (if you're reading this from SOSH, you'll know him better as LawTown Fool) is going to take a look at the top six discs from the past year. So, it's time to go to school and learn the three R's. Not reading, (w)riting and 'rithmatic, but Ryan's Record Reveiw.

Some shit I dug from 2004:

Interpol: Antics
Don’t bang the bassist from Interpol -- the chap’s allegedly got herpes. Don’t give up on this album either -- I nearly did. I was persistent, however, and though Antics isn’t as strong as Interpol’s debut, it eventually paid off with rewards like: “C’mere,” “Length of Love,” “Next Exit” and “Evil” (one of my favorite songs of the year).

Aberfeldy: Young Forever
Oh my goodness, the glockenspiel -- Young Forever, my unquestioned favorite album of 2004, is teeming with it. This Scottish quintet’s debut is also chock full of mandolins, fiddles, bells -- even a little bodhran (which warms this Irish trad lover’s heart). The tenderness of “Tie On One” will make you teary, while the cheeky lyrics of “Vegetarian Restaurant” will make you smile.

TV On The Radio: Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes
It’s difficult to categorize these guys -- they dabble in post-punk, in jazz, in doo-wop. They dabble in fucking goodness too. Tunde Adepimbe’s voice and lyrics suck you in -- right from the opening, dragged-out lines of “The Wrong Way,” the album’s first track: “Woke up in a magic nigger movie.”

The Walkmen: Bows & Arrows
This is my third pick from a NYC-based band -- I’m at peace with myself for doing this because New York’s most beloved baseball team recently engineered the greatest collapse in the history of pro sports (I had to get that in there, assbags). I picked this album up early last year and this fact, along with several of the song titles (the droning “No Christmas While I’m Talking,” the bittersweet “The North Pole” and the bouncy “New Year’s Eve”), has always given this album a wintery feel for me. Also, “Thinking Of A Dream I Had” seems fitting when reflecting -- during these most recent winter days -- upon that World Series run.

A.C. Newman: The Slow Wonder
Carl Newman, lead dude from the New Pornographers, churns out one helluva debut solo album. The fucker’s stacked with pop delights: the aching “The Cloud Prayer,” the upbeat (in music only) “Miracle Drug” and my favorite, “The Town Halo,” filled with plenty of swirling cellos. It’s something catchy to tide us over as we wait for the latest New Pornos’ release.

The Libertines: The Libertines
Okay, you know how a football player has a great season, doesn’t make the Pro Bowl, follows that up with a slightly-less-than-great season and then makes this Pro Bowl on account of him being rewarded for the previous season? That’s why the Libertines self-titled effort is on here. Their debut is far stronger, though this LP certainly does have its moments: “Can’t Stand Me Now” and “What Became Of The Likely Lads,” where Pete Doherty and Carl Barat go toe-to-toe on the vocals; “Campaign Of Hate” with the chilling lyrics, “There’s a campaign of hate/It’s waiting at the school gate”; and the amazing 20-second solo in “The Ha Ha Wall.”

This is going to be a regular thing here at 19 Thoughts, Rye knows his shit about new music and is going to let everyone what he's listening to and why it's good. We're also thinking about linking the song to web sites where you can download the tune, so if it sucks you can let us know. Of course, if it's good, you can let us know that too.

Aside from Aquaman's blog, I haven't really written too much. Luckily, not much has been happening. Aly and I just came back from my work Christmas party. Like most work Christmas party held after the holidays, it sucked.

For one thing, most of the people I work with are fucking dorks. The other thing is that it's hard to make regular chit-chat with work folk without talking about work, and no one wants to talk about work. You have to spend most of the night fishing for things that people may be into. So you end up talking about malls or cars or some other really stupid thing for the entire night.

The worst part of the night is that we came in late and had to sit with a couple of people I barely knew. Turns out that the people I sat with were cool, but it was still kind of sucky. The strange thing about my company is that a lot of people go all out for this party, one lady even wore the dress she got married in to this shin-dig. It wasn't a wedding dress, but it was sort of a white prom dress. I mean really, what the hell?

Aside from this party, it was a pretty boring week. Aly started her job on Monday and aside from some growing pains, it's going well. We took my dad out to dinner on Tuesday for his birthday. The sucky thing for my dad is that my mom is never around for his birthday. She and Ryan's mother always take a Florida vacation to visit Ellie's sister, Sally. She's a teacher and gets the same vacation time off every year. This leaves my dad alone. I don't think he cares too much because being alone doesn't bug him, still sucks for him though.

Ok, I got nothing else ... I think I'm going to bed.

EDIT: I forgot to add a book report, on Monday I finished reading Nick Hornby's "Fever Pitch". Not a bad book at all, not the greatest book that I heard that it was, but not bad at all. I liked it because Hornby does a great job of explaining what it's like to be obsessed by a team.

In his case, it's Arsenal of the English Soccer League. This guy has been crazy for them since the late 60s when he was just a boy. As he gets older his craze only grows, even going as far as moving close to their home stadium so he can walk to the games. It's something that every Sox fan can relate to ... in fact, they're turning the book into a movie starring Jimmy Fallon as a Sox-obsessed fan who dates Drew Barrymore.

It's going to suck.

The one thing that I didn't like, and it's not Hornby's fault, is that he wrote it about English soccer, something of which I know nothing about. If I knew the intricacies of the game a bit better, I think I would've gotten more out of it, but I don't, so there were some parts that I was sort of skimming over. However, he did rekindle my interest in soccer, so maybe after a bit of research, I can read this again and get more out of it.

All in all, a good read.

I hate New Year's Eve

I've been writing a lot of schlock about the holidays and how wonderful everyone is and how much joy there is at this time of the year. In the interest of fair time and giving equal time to dissenting opinion, I bring you Aquaman and how he spent New Year's Eve.

Thanks for returning my emails, dickwad. Supposedly Byron's been getting a lot of heat for my last post. I wrote something about Giganta's 18 foot vagina, I guess they didn't like that. I know what they mean, I didn't particularly care for my 5'6" vagina ... of course that was my first wife. Hey yoooooo!

Seriously though, the holidays aren't the best time of the year for your buddy Aquaman. For one thing, all of my SuperFriend buddies go to their home planets, their home towns, their home islands or whatever. Except for Apache Chief, all that dude does is sit around and watch the Trouble Alert for 72 straight hours. Last year I asked him how he does it. He said, and I quote, "Ug. Me have strength of bear, focus of hawk and fifth of Gin."

So, since I have nothing to do, I head underwater to Atlantis. Of course, my second wife Mera is there. Think she's happy to see her husband? Of course not, she's lying wasted on our clam-shell couch, vomit hanging from her lips, cigarette dangling from her fingers. I know what you're thinking, "How can you smoke under water?" It's not easy, Copernicus, but it can be done.

Anyway, after I wake her up with a scalding cup of coffee (thrown in her face) I ask her about dinner. I don't get the answer until she stops screaming and its a frying pan flung at me. Being a superhero, I can sense that she's pissed, so I head on down to the Rusty Barnicle.

All of the guys are there, Aqua Lad, Sub Mariner (yeah, I hang out with Marvel Comic dudes, what's it to you?) Tusky the Walrus, the gang. Look at these assholes, would you hang out with them?





The Tusky picture is small because he's a piece of shit walrus. The thing is I don't talk to any of them any more, not Sub Mariner, that dude never talked to me ... funny thing about the Mariner, he loves baseball. Know what his favorite team is? That's right. The Washington Nationals. "How can I not love a team that is undefeated?"

Anyway, the reason why I don't talk to AquaLad or Tusky any more is because of what happened last New Year's Eve. NYE is a time where we can all get loaded and shoot off our mouth. We were pounding the Budweisers pretty hard and Tusky gets all philosophical and says, "What is your New Year's resolution?"

AquaLad said something about trying to work out harder and stop wearing such short shorts. Tusky explained that he wanted to work down on eating, he mentioned something about an Atkins diet, but I wasn't listening.

So, finally it gets to me (I am sort of the unofficial leader of this little crew) and they're all pretty interested in what I had to say. So, I look at Tusky, then at AquaLad, then at Tusky again and I blurt out, "My New Year's resolution is to nail both of your ugly mothers in the starfish!" Then I started to laugh, you know, to let them know I'm just goofing around.

They're both pussies and gave me a dirty look.

I was like, what's your fucking problem?

And both of them said, "Dude, you know that our mothers are both dead."

I was like, "Who fucking cares? One, I like nailing dead bitches and two, they won't put up a fight."

That fucker Tusky jammed one of his tusks into my forearm and wouldn't let go until I apologized. As this was going on, AquaLad just started slapping me. Yes, slapping me. Literally. Like a woman. Tusky's tusks fucking killed, but I was laughing so hard because of AquaLad's slaps that it was hard to say I was sorry. Tusky released his grip on me.

I told them that I was sorry. Sorry that I wasted my time hanging around with you losers, and I walked back home.

So, here we are a year later and those two pricks still haven't talked to me since. Who would've thought that someone would hold a grudge about potential narcolepsy on a person's mother? Jeez, talk about being a puss. Someone put a quarter in the jukebox and that Auld Lang Syne song that Kenny G. does where they have a dude read headlines over the song came on. It got me thinking that I should really bury the hatchet with the guys.

They're a little nerdy, but they're not too bad. I took a leak, and when I came back I order a couple of brews. I brought them over to them as a peace offering. They were happy to see me and we started talking and drinking, just like old times. And we got as drunk as we did last year.

After getting hammered, Tusky asked again, "What's your New Year's resolution?"

AquaLad, again went first, "I'm going to quit wearing these speedos and I'm going to keep in better contact with my friends."

"I'm going to lose some weight and also keep in contact with all of my old friends," Tusky said and he gave me a wink.

I was genuinely touched. These guys really liked me, despite the mean things I said to them. Finally they asked me what my resolution is. They held their breath, until I said, "First off I'm going to quit masturbating in the bathroom and then dumping the jizz in my friend's drinks and I'm going to dig up both of your mothers and slam them both in the ass!"

I swam home laughing my ass off thinking, I don't hate New Year's Eve, I fucking love it!

The beginning of the year/end of the year ... whatever

So, the calendar says to go buy a new one and we do. The end of the year is always met with bittersweet feelings. On one hand you're glad that the year is over, especially when you think back to some of the shit you slogged through. But on the other hand, there were some real good times too and you wonder if this year is going to be better.

I hope so. Not that I had a bad year: I got engaged, the Sox won the World Series and a bunch of other cool things happened, but I don't want 2004 to be the apex of my life. That would suck. I hope that every year is better than the one before.

For New Year's Eve, Aly and I visited Danna and Rick and it was pretty chill. Friday night we went to Morton's steak house in White Plains and had an awesome, awesome meal. I had the double filet for the main course with a side of hash browns. For an appetizer I had scallops wrapped in bacon as well as Caesar salad.

We also got a bottle of wine and a surprise, after Rick chose the wine, the steward came over to us and said, "This bottle of wine is complements of Mike and Donna." My parents went through the trouble of calling information, finding the number for the White Plains Morton's and then telling them to put the wine on their card. That was awesome, and I was completely touched by that gesture. Sort of made me feel bad about what I wrote on Wednesday.

The rest of the weekend, we have done nothing. Saturday we dicked around Danna and Rick's place until about 3:00 when we went to the mall. We got something to eat, I bought "America: The Book" by the folks at the Daily Show and then Aly and I took off. We would've normally stayed until today, but Aly is starting her job on Monday and wanted to get her bearings before the big day tomorrow, can't say that I blame her. Starting a new job is always tough.

We were originally supposed to hang out with Aly's friend Erin. She's a 4'10" lesbian that's built like a bowling ball and is as tough as nails. Aly's told me so many stories about this chick, that I really wanted to meet her. Unfortunately, she never came up, so we just got some Chinese food and called it a night.

This morning, we decided to go to church. It was the Epiphany Mass where the Wise Men visit Jesus but don't stab him in the back by telling Herrod where he is. (Herrod was going to kill him, like he did with all of the young boys born during that time). As I'm listening to the Gospel, which (truthfully) is the best part of Mass because it's a more "historical" part of the mass, it hit me how much I hate January and February and just how different December 20-23 is from January 2-5.

I've had this feeling since I was a kid and what I mean by this is, during those December days you're really focused on the holidays and family. People's spirits are lighter and while there is a chill in the air, it doesn't seem as cold. If you happen to go to church and hear the readings before hand, you know something good is coming (presents, family, etc.) Then Christmas week comes and goes and then it's after New Year's and then where are you?

You're right back where you started, except you now have to wait about a year before you can see your extended family, it's going to snow for the next two to three months and work (and school) begin with a vengeance tomorrow. I guess if you love your job, that's not the worst thing in the world, but I don't, so it sucks. What

I'm trying to get at is, ten days ago you were pumped about the unknown of Christmas, the presents, the thrills, the laughs, now it's over and you have to get on with your ordinary life.

As far as resolutions go, I'm only going to make a couple of them. Last year I made two and kept one. They were to keep in touch with my friends better (did not do) and write more (which, thanks to this Blog, I've been doing).

This year I'm really going to get serious about getting in shape, Aly and I talked about training for a 5 or 10K. The other thing that I'm going to do, and I'm sure you're sick of hearing about it, is really get my cartoon moving. I'm still working on my last one, and after that, it's just getting the site up and running. If I can do both of these, my 2005 will be better than 04.

BTW, I got a few requests for upcoming 19 Thoughts, so I'm going to try and do those ... both of the ideas were really good.