Something new?

Not really, but here I am anyway! I've gotten down to business watching some of my Netflix queue, really trying to get through some of it since it's QUITE large. Over 100 titles on instant play, and that's just the actual queue. The DVD section is completely out of hand, probably around 400 discs. Insane.

I watched "Surrogates" this morning, it came out last year or the year before and has Bruce Willis in it, and it was really quite good. I mean, there was a little social commentary, but it wasn't really heavy handed and the story moved along really well without getting distracted by the subplots.

Now I'm watching "The Alphabet Killer" which is a thriller with Eliza Dushku. No reports yet, I'm only about ten minutes in ;)

As noted, we had an extremely long week last week and as a result have just kinda puttered around this weekend. I got my comforter washed (which was badly needed) and the bedclothes and some general stuff, stayed up on a cleaning/organizing binge whereupon I discovered that an entire magnum of Benadryl spilled in my travel bag and ruined the $100 gift certificate to Savage Pizza from one of my after school families. I'm going to go talk to them and see if they can pull anything up or give me a break, I would hate for the family that gifted it to me to have wasted their money! I know I need to put those things in zip loc bags, but I forget and then something like this happens, just about every time!

I don't have any pictures from recent events, but hopefully Michael will get some up and I can steal them from him. I feel awful because we've been SO busy recently I didn't have time to mail Ana's birthday present! We miss her SO much, and wish we could have gotten them there on time, but I'm sure she'll be excited anyway-- everyone loves a late birthday gift, it always feel like you birthday all over ;)

That's about all the news that's fit to print, and a little that isn't. I'm off to figure out what to get for Jan for her birthday since EVERYONE's birthday is in September! Della, Pops, March, Jan, Jeremy, John, Ana, Peanut, it's crazy!

Ciao for now!

Oh, AND...

Welcome to the world James Lewis! Born September 9, 2010 at 6:28pm 7lb 1.8oz, 19.5''

Caq, James, and Lewis-- one happy family!

Henry Moore at the Atlanta Botanical Garden

and a Chiluly

It was a really excellent exhibit, the placement of the figures was very organic and fit so well-- I think henry Moore (who intended for his work to be displayed in open fields) would have been very interested to see how it all worked out. This last one is my favorite-- it was placed in a field that slopes down towards the city. As you can tell, it was a pretty foggy night. I'd like to go back before they close the exhibit and try to get a shot of the city clearly through the sculpture, but I don't know that's going to happen. Oh, well, I still love it! Though I do love anything having to do with the Atlanta skyline...

This week, we head to Memphis! Woohoo! Now to shake this cough and hope Jeremy can, too!

Brief tanget: We're watching Max Payne and just as I said that they had everyone in this movie LUDA shows up! Whaaaat!

And your Netflix wait list:

Eddie Izzard: Glorious

What Lies Beneath

Land of the Lost

Much shorter than usual!

Getting back in the game

Now that I have this new computer, I'm getting back on top of all my "TV" watching-- first and foremost is NBC's semi-based-on-the-bible show "Kings" which draws its inspiration from the story of David. I watched the pilot and recommended it to Jeremy and we're both in love with it now! I've been really behind recently and have almost caught up (only 2 shows to go now!) and have been really pleased with some of the things they're doing. Jeremy says that even though it isn't an exact copy of the story, the spirit is there, and I think they've stylized it in a way that it's clear they're trying to do David as, perhaps, Shakespeare would have. Ian McShane (Deadwood, Scoop) is King Silas, and he is about as Shakespearean an actor as you can get, and the boy who plays David is a very wholesome-looking Australian actor whose name I can't remember. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it-- it pleases the biblical crowd, the Shakespearean, and those who just love a good old-fashioned story of love and glory.

I've also gotten in to a bit of a routine with my movies, which means I finish a DVD a day when I get home from work-- I'm wrapping up season 2 of "Big Love" (another one I highly recommend) at the moment and can't wait for 3 to come out on DVD. I can't remember all the interviews with Mormons and Polygamists that I saw at the time I was watching it real-time on HBO, but I think the show does an interesting job of showing all aspects of plural marriage, and how perhaps it isn't that different from the marriages that go on in all religions. I realized while scrolling through my queue today that I hadn't put up my waits in a while, and I'm very amused by my current wait list so I'll share

-Deadwood
-Namastey London
-Kingdom
-Watchmen
-Coraline

I know it's probably bad that I have so much on there that I forget what I have, but doing this little "What's on wait?" game refreshes my memory and gets me excited. I'll also be wrapping up "Desperate Housewives" this weekend (hey, my tastes vary, don't judge me!) and Joe's next picks (I make my friend Joe pick numbers from my Netflix queue to decide what I'll watch next) are "Boston Legal" (another show I missed after a season and a half of watching), The Brothers Grimm (with Heath Ledger), and The Brave One (with Jodie Foster and NAVEEN ANDREWS!). Yee haw!

For my much needed amusement

This week's waits on Netflix:

Quantum of Solace
Pineapple Express
The Tudors: Season One
Nick Frost's Danger! 50,000 Volts!
Namastey London
Slumdog Millionaire (hell to the yeah)
The Reader
The Caller


What I'm Watching:

This weekend, Jeremy and I watched Role Models which wasn't drop down hilarious, but was pretty darn funny. I frequently feel like a baby version of Paul Rudd's sarcastic, sick-with-uneducated-people character. One of my favorite lines of the movie? After being harassed by the coffee lady for asking for a large instead of a venti: "Tall is large, grande is Spanish for large, Venti is the only one that doesn't mean large. It's Italian for twenty. Congrats, you're stupid in three languages."

At first, I was wondering if they were just going to be jerks the whole movie, but they definitely redeemed themselves and let's just say that if you're a KISS fan, you'll need to watch for the last battle scene. That's right, battle scene. LARPers, here we come!

We also watched the new Speed Racer, which was alright. The cartoon was kind of lame (that's not to say I didn't like it, but it WAS pretty lame), and the movie was a classic Wachowski brothers (Matrix) acid trip. The acting was proper for the style, and I couldn't help but fall out laughing when Matthew Fox (who played Racer X) started crying at the end. Matthew Fox is crying, must be a day that ends in "y"-- amirite, LOST fans?

Last night, I watched Son of Rambow, a British film about a boy whose ultra-religious family won't let him watch tv or movies (they seemed to be Quaker-ish). He's got a crazy imagination, and falls in with a boy at school who is quite the trouble maker. They start making their own version of Rambo: First Blood, and soon the whole school is involved and his mother (a widow) decides that God would rather her take care of her family and do what's best for them than listen to some of the members of the fellowship who think the child is out of control. It's one of those sweet, nostalgic-type movies that the British do so well, and I highly recommend it.

Next up, more Desperate Housewives. I don't care what you think, I'm watchin' it and I'm likin' it. I hear it jumps the shark later, but I'm starting from Season 1 so I haven't hit that point yet.

Love those Gamma Sigmas!

My girls had a swap/mixer last night with KSig over at Tech, the theme was "Seven Deadly Sins" so being a good adviser, I was a little worried that it would look like Halloween at Rhodes where half the girls just show up looking like a prostitute and call it a costume. I am so proud and totally amused by them all! There were a few "lust" costumes, but they weren't too bad and pretty creative, too! My favorites were the following:

Gluttony-- some of the girls got inner tubes and decorated them like doughnuts and walked around offering snacks to people all night
Sloth-- several girls wore old terrycloth robes and bath slippers, and one girl went and got clever, tying Eucalyptus branches to herself to go as A sloth!
Pride-- India went as a self-loving prom queen/pageant queen, which is hilarious because it's totally not at all who India is!

Of course, when I think about it, I shouldn't have been worried-- we're all AOIIs and we do a pretty darn good job of keeping it classy!

And, for good measure, my Netflix waits for the week
Role Models
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Deadwood: Season 1
Pineapple Express
Quarantine

Not much change, though it's interesting Deadwood is on a wait-- great show, if you're in to the wild West!

Why am I still up?

I have no idea why I'm still up, I'm exhausted and had a looong weekend at work, but I made some decent money and will have some to try and fix the car and to put away in savings! Yaaay!

Jeremy's coming on Wednesday, which is exciting (yaaaay), and I found mom's Fernbank card so we'll get to go for free, and I'm thinking we'll go to El Tesoro on Thursday night. I need to ask him if there are any movies he wants me to put on the Netflix queue. It would be nice if he could be here the whole week, but Bike Week's a pretty big deal down there and he's convinced he needs the brownie points for helping out at the school-- I'm sure it doesn't hurt, but if anyone doesn't need them, you know it's Jeremy!!

The Wine Crawl was fun this afternoon; I saw a lot of people I knew, some I hadn't seen in almost 10 years! There was a couple from my old neighborhood, Liz and David, who were always really fantastic people and I found out what happened to our friends Cindy and Ray (Ray was a musician in Atlanta back in the day)-- they're in New Hampshire and trying to get out, but currently their car is buried under several feet of snow ;)

On an absolutely unrelated note, I always get a kick week to week out of what has a wait on it on my Netflix queue-- this week it's Heavenly Creatures (though I suspect any and everything with Kate Winslet will be on a wait), Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (which has been on a wait for like a month now), Pineapple Express, and Quarantine. The last two are new releases, so it's not a big surprise, but there are some funny ones every now and again. For like two months, the Twin Peaks movie was on "very long wait" for some odd reason.

I suppose that's all the rambling I'll do for now, more as I see fit!