Monday, December 04, 2006
Great Uncle Ernest Gave Me The Bad Touch
Which is pretty impressive for a guy who's been dead for a couple years. On November 22nd, at about 2:50 am, I woke up out of a deep sleep to find my bed shaking back and forth, and it lasted about five seconds. I can wake up in the middle of the night and be absolutely terrified for no reason at all - thus is the nature of Sarah. Now, imagine my usual nocturnal paranoia coupled with the fact that I couldn't decide whether or not the bed shaking was part of a dream or an actual physical occurrence. My first thought was that it was an earthquake. My second thought had to do with gas line explosions. And since I'm way too into Ghosthunters, my third thought was about the painting my dad had just given me a few days before. He's been evicted (he has a room now and actually got a job, so everything's going okay) and he gave me some things to keep safe that he didn't want to put in storage. One of those things was a painting done by his Uncle Ernest. So there I was thinking that maybe Uncle Ernerst was bored with hanging around the painting and decided to wake me up and say hello. Honestly, if I wasn't rendered incapable of moving because of the fear, I would have woken my mother up and asked if I could sleep in her room.
Eventually I started hearing sirens off in the distance and after a while I went back to sleep. In the morning, this was all over the tv. A chemical plant in Danvers that manufactured inks and solvents blew the fuck up around 2:50 am. Right in the middle of a residential neighborhood. I saw the pictures and I expected total carnage, but amazingly, no one was killed. The plant was about 3 miles from my house but apparently people felt the blast as far away as New Hampshire. Here's a fun map: The red star is the Danversport Bakery, which was pretty much demolished. I'm not exactly sure where the plant was, but if you switch to the aerial shot I'm guessing it's one of the large white buildings immediately to the left of the bakery. I feel so bad for the people whose houses and businesses were damaged beyond repair, but at least no one died.
Thanksgiving was a typical Cameron family gathering: loud, with too much food and relentless teasing of my Uncle Bobby and my Aunty Jeannie. Which is exactly how it should be. My cousin Holly came with her son, Nick, who is now four and still as sweet and adorable as he was when I last saw him at age two. I didn't eat breakfast that day, so I grazed a bit too much on the shrimp and crackers and cheese and veggies and dip, so I barely ate any dinner. But two hours later, after picking up my father who usually comes over for dessert, I managed three small slices of pie and slice of cake. I love Thanksgiving.
Last Saturday, Tracy moved to Hopkinton with her boyfriend, Jeff. My little girl is all grown up. On Friday I went out there with her to a job interview in Framingham and then over to the new apartment for a tour and a little cleaning. As far as first apartments go, the place is aces in my book. It's on the first floor of an old Victorian house, two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen and a bathroom. All the rooms are nice and big with ten-foot ceilings. There's a whole lot of decorating potential. I suppose I'll have to learn how to drive on the highway now so I can visit.
Oh, and I saw The Fountain over the weekend. I've never been so glad that I saw a movie alone because, seriously, the crying was embarrassing. And since I'm such a glutton for punishment I might go see it again before it leaves the theaters, which will have to be soon because it's really tanking at the box office.
Eventually I started hearing sirens off in the distance and after a while I went back to sleep. In the morning, this was all over the tv. A chemical plant in Danvers that manufactured inks and solvents blew the fuck up around 2:50 am. Right in the middle of a residential neighborhood. I saw the pictures and I expected total carnage, but amazingly, no one was killed. The plant was about 3 miles from my house but apparently people felt the blast as far away as New Hampshire. Here's a fun map: The red star is the Danversport Bakery, which was pretty much demolished. I'm not exactly sure where the plant was, but if you switch to the aerial shot I'm guessing it's one of the large white buildings immediately to the left of the bakery. I feel so bad for the people whose houses and businesses were damaged beyond repair, but at least no one died.
Thanksgiving was a typical Cameron family gathering: loud, with too much food and relentless teasing of my Uncle Bobby and my Aunty Jeannie. Which is exactly how it should be. My cousin Holly came with her son, Nick, who is now four and still as sweet and adorable as he was when I last saw him at age two. I didn't eat breakfast that day, so I grazed a bit too much on the shrimp and crackers and cheese and veggies and dip, so I barely ate any dinner. But two hours later, after picking up my father who usually comes over for dessert, I managed three small slices of pie and slice of cake. I love Thanksgiving.
Last Saturday, Tracy moved to Hopkinton with her boyfriend, Jeff. My little girl is all grown up. On Friday I went out there with her to a job interview in Framingham and then over to the new apartment for a tour and a little cleaning. As far as first apartments go, the place is aces in my book. It's on the first floor of an old Victorian house, two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen and a bathroom. All the rooms are nice and big with ten-foot ceilings. There's a whole lot of decorating potential. I suppose I'll have to learn how to drive on the highway now so I can visit.
Oh, and I saw The Fountain over the weekend. I've never been so glad that I saw a movie alone because, seriously, the crying was embarrassing. And since I'm such a glutton for punishment I might go see it again before it leaves the theaters, which will have to be soon because it's really tanking at the box office.
Labels: Amatuer Film Critic Corner, Sarah's Paranoia
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Would you like some more . . .
PANCAKES?
I think I'll pass, thanks.
Yesterday, after I proctored a test at Salem State, Mom, Brian and I went to A Taste of Asia for lunch. Brian, as usual, ordered way too much sushi. I think there's a part of your brain that, after every time you eat sushi, makes you forget how filling it is so you always order six or seven hand rolls when four will do. For my part I also ordered a vegetable tempura appetizer. We like the maki, so for us it was a California roll, a Philadelphia roll (possibly the best I've ever had), a caterpillar roll, volcano maki, goldfish maki, and a godzilla roll. I expected it to come on a boat, but I don't think they make one big enough. And we ate it all. (Actually, we took about five pieces home, but Brian and I finished it off around 3pm.) I did not eat dinner last night. I call yesterday a taste of things to come because my mom is on vacation this week, which means that it's basically going to be non-stop eating straight through Thanksgiving. Here comes the intestinal woe.
(Although, there's no appetite supressant like having an inch worm tumble out of your brand new package of raisins and into your bowl first thing in the morning. I wish I didn't know that.)
I need to buy a Regina Spektor cd. I don't think I can wait until Christmas.
Has anyone else seen Last Night? I'd been meaning to for a while, mostly because of my crush on Callum Keith Rennie (damn you, Due South) and my love for pre-Sideways Sandra Oh. I finally caught it on IFC on Friday. Canadians make a great end-of-the-world movie. The dvd is completely bare-bones, but it's definitely going on my "to buy" list.
I'll be babysitting with Tracy tonight. I need one of those plastic face shields that my dental hygienist wears when she's cleaning my teeth. Last Wednesday I got a fleck of Sammy-Spit right in my eye. He had a cough and a fever at the time, so my prognosis is not good.
I think I'll pass, thanks.
Yesterday, after I proctored a test at Salem State, Mom, Brian and I went to A Taste of Asia for lunch. Brian, as usual, ordered way too much sushi. I think there's a part of your brain that, after every time you eat sushi, makes you forget how filling it is so you always order six or seven hand rolls when four will do. For my part I also ordered a vegetable tempura appetizer. We like the maki, so for us it was a California roll, a Philadelphia roll (possibly the best I've ever had), a caterpillar roll, volcano maki, goldfish maki, and a godzilla roll. I expected it to come on a boat, but I don't think they make one big enough. And we ate it all. (Actually, we took about five pieces home, but Brian and I finished it off around 3pm.) I did not eat dinner last night. I call yesterday a taste of things to come because my mom is on vacation this week, which means that it's basically going to be non-stop eating straight through Thanksgiving. Here comes the intestinal woe.
(Although, there's no appetite supressant like having an inch worm tumble out of your brand new package of raisins and into your bowl first thing in the morning. I wish I didn't know that.)
I need to buy a Regina Spektor cd. I don't think I can wait until Christmas.
Has anyone else seen Last Night? I'd been meaning to for a while, mostly because of my crush on Callum Keith Rennie (damn you, Due South) and my love for pre-Sideways Sandra Oh. I finally caught it on IFC on Friday. Canadians make a great end-of-the-world movie. The dvd is completely bare-bones, but it's definitely going on my "to buy" list.
I'll be babysitting with Tracy tonight. I need one of those plastic face shields that my dental hygienist wears when she's cleaning my teeth. Last Wednesday I got a fleck of Sammy-Spit right in my eye. He had a cough and a fever at the time, so my prognosis is not good.
Labels: Amatuer Film Critic Corner, I Like Food
Monday, October 23, 2006
Because my formatting skills suck and I have not the patience to improve them right now, the previous post has no captions (by the way, clicky the picture for to enbiggen). If it did, they would go like this:
1. Mom and Brian walking through the Essex Pedestrian Mall.
2. The line to get inside the churchy-looking Witch Museum.
3. The Pineapple on top of the band stand on the Common.
4. The crowd at the Essex Pedestrian Mall. Lady has some nice purple hair.
5. A view of a tanker from Pickering Wharf. The power plant is around the corner and that big black mound is coal.
6. A head stone in the Charter Street Cemetery, the oldest cemetery in Salem.
We did the Haunted Happenings thing yesterday. The plan was to just walk around downtown for a few hours (and seriously, if you're thinking of going to Salem to do the tourist thing, just park at the train station, it costs two dollars and it takes five minutes to walk to the middle of downtown), but we also stopped for lunch at Victoria Station and went into a few cute antique stores. I'm still on the lookout for a shotglass set like the one I passed on when I went to Maine. One store had a beautiful black and white framed photograph of the incredible garden that used to be on the Danvers State Hospital grounds (Tracy, I wish you were there to see it!). It was pricey, but if I had the disposable income I would have had no problem throwing down the $200 to own it.
Just this past week I saw two surprisingly good movies, The Departed and The Prestige. I highly recommend both of them. The Departed is another great crime movie from Scorcese and every single performance is amazing. There's also a lot of dirty language and brain splatter, so it was a perfect movie to take my dad to see. I wish I hadn't seen Infernal Affairs, the Hong Kong movie The Departed is based on, but I suppose that it's a pretty good endorsement that I knew every single plot twist (except for the fate of one character) and I was still completely engrossed for two-and-a-half hours.
I saw The Prestige with Tracy on Saturday, mainly because David Bowie has a small part as Nikola Tesla and she's been excited about seeing it for months. Basically (without giving away any plot) it's about two magicians who keep trying to one-up each other in increasingly sadistic ways until you're staring at the screen thinking, "You sick fuck!" But, you know, in a good way. There were some interesting twists and they were all earned. If you paid attention you could see them all coming and I liked that even though I figured out what was going on fairly quickly, it didn't take away from my enjoyment of the movie because it wasn't about a twist ending, it was about the lengths a person will go to for revenge.
It's cold! And daylight savings ends next week. That's probably my least favorite time of year, that first week of darkness by five. Tracy, I think we should make it better by going to Sylvan Street, getting a couple raspberry-lime rickeys and some desserts, and having Jeff pick us up. Boozing it up will totally make up for the grief of lost daylight.
1. Mom and Brian walking through the Essex Pedestrian Mall.
2. The line to get inside the churchy-looking Witch Museum.
3. The Pineapple on top of the band stand on the Common.
4. The crowd at the Essex Pedestrian Mall. Lady has some nice purple hair.
5. A view of a tanker from Pickering Wharf. The power plant is around the corner and that big black mound is coal.
6. A head stone in the Charter Street Cemetery, the oldest cemetery in Salem.
We did the Haunted Happenings thing yesterday. The plan was to just walk around downtown for a few hours (and seriously, if you're thinking of going to Salem to do the tourist thing, just park at the train station, it costs two dollars and it takes five minutes to walk to the middle of downtown), but we also stopped for lunch at Victoria Station and went into a few cute antique stores. I'm still on the lookout for a shotglass set like the one I passed on when I went to Maine. One store had a beautiful black and white framed photograph of the incredible garden that used to be on the Danvers State Hospital grounds (Tracy, I wish you were there to see it!). It was pricey, but if I had the disposable income I would have had no problem throwing down the $200 to own it.
Just this past week I saw two surprisingly good movies, The Departed and The Prestige. I highly recommend both of them. The Departed is another great crime movie from Scorcese and every single performance is amazing. There's also a lot of dirty language and brain splatter, so it was a perfect movie to take my dad to see. I wish I hadn't seen Infernal Affairs, the Hong Kong movie The Departed is based on, but I suppose that it's a pretty good endorsement that I knew every single plot twist (except for the fate of one character) and I was still completely engrossed for two-and-a-half hours.
I saw The Prestige with Tracy on Saturday, mainly because David Bowie has a small part as Nikola Tesla and she's been excited about seeing it for months. Basically (without giving away any plot) it's about two magicians who keep trying to one-up each other in increasingly sadistic ways until you're staring at the screen thinking, "You sick fuck!" But, you know, in a good way. There were some interesting twists and they were all earned. If you paid attention you could see them all coming and I liked that even though I figured out what was going on fairly quickly, it didn't take away from my enjoyment of the movie because it wasn't about a twist ending, it was about the lengths a person will go to for revenge.
It's cold! And daylight savings ends next week. That's probably my least favorite time of year, that first week of darkness by five. Tracy, I think we should make it better by going to Sylvan Street, getting a couple raspberry-lime rickeys and some desserts, and having Jeff pick us up. Boozing it up will totally make up for the grief of lost daylight.
Labels: Amatuer Film Critic Corner
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Never gonna leave the house again
I am in so much trouble. I just discovered YouTube.com. They have episodes of The State. Guess what I did until one o'clock this morning? They have "Toothbrush" and "I'ma Da Pope-ah" and "Doug" and "Superfriends" and "Eating Muppets" and "The International Sign for Choking" and a boatload of stuff I completely forgot about. Like the "Monkey Torture" interview-- "Get yourself a monkey and torture the hhhell out of it." MTV needs to put that shit out on dvd. Right now I'm listening to a live performance of Radiohead's "How to Disappear Completely." Christ, I might have to add a YouTube link to the bliggety blog.
Have you seen Kiss Kiss Bang Bang? Awful fucking title (or completely fucking brilliant?), but a great take on the buddy cop movie and film noir. And my favorite film narration evar. Yes, I said it. Evar. Although it's hard to go wrong with a nice Morgan Freeman narration. Another film to recommend, the Hong Kong thriller Infernal Affairs. (This is the part where I confess to having a crush on Tony Leung Chiu-wai, but only when he sports the goatee) It was on one of the Starz channels a lot last year, but with a hideous English dub that made it unbearable to watch. I got the dvd with English subtitles for Christmas and I finally watched it yesterday. It's about a triad gang member who infiltrates the police force and a cop who's been undercover in the gang for three years, both of them trying to find each other out. Scorcese's doing a remake with Matt Damon and Leonardo Dicaprio called The Departed.
Tracy and I finally made it to the Weathervane where we got sandwiches and clam chowder and generally just ate too damn much. A lady behind us made a complaint about all the "little rubbery bits" in her lobster roll. Also, I don't think she knew it was going to come with mayo. Methinks she may have been from out of state. Like, Wisconsin. On the way home, as I sucked on a mint and related the story of how NYC radio show hosts Star and Buckwild got fired, I nearly choked to death. It went something like, "They got fired because . . . . . . hhhhrraraaaaaghghghghhghhhhhh." And it was incredibly funny, mostly because Tracy had no idea that my trachea had been invaded by a starbrite and just kinda thought it was part of the story.
Hey Amy, I spent a good portion of this afternoon messing around with the monotypes. It took me a while but I found the right amount of ink to roll on the glass (correct answer: very little) and got to it. I think I might try out a multi-media thing since I have all these unused brushes and tubes of watercolors. And a very nice fountain-style pen. I missed having ink under my nails.
Have you seen Kiss Kiss Bang Bang? Awful fucking title (or completely fucking brilliant?), but a great take on the buddy cop movie and film noir. And my favorite film narration evar. Yes, I said it. Evar. Although it's hard to go wrong with a nice Morgan Freeman narration. Another film to recommend, the Hong Kong thriller Infernal Affairs. (This is the part where I confess to having a crush on Tony Leung Chiu-wai, but only when he sports the goatee) It was on one of the Starz channels a lot last year, but with a hideous English dub that made it unbearable to watch. I got the dvd with English subtitles for Christmas and I finally watched it yesterday. It's about a triad gang member who infiltrates the police force and a cop who's been undercover in the gang for three years, both of them trying to find each other out. Scorcese's doing a remake with Matt Damon and Leonardo Dicaprio called The Departed.
Tracy and I finally made it to the Weathervane where we got sandwiches and clam chowder and generally just ate too damn much. A lady behind us made a complaint about all the "little rubbery bits" in her lobster roll. Also, I don't think she knew it was going to come with mayo. Methinks she may have been from out of state. Like, Wisconsin. On the way home, as I sucked on a mint and related the story of how NYC radio show hosts Star and Buckwild got fired, I nearly choked to death. It went something like, "They got fired because . . . . . . hhhhrraraaaaaghghghghhghhhhhh." And it was incredibly funny, mostly because Tracy had no idea that my trachea had been invaded by a starbrite and just kinda thought it was part of the story.
Hey Amy, I spent a good portion of this afternoon messing around with the monotypes. It took me a while but I found the right amount of ink to roll on the glass (correct answer: very little) and got to it. I think I might try out a multi-media thing since I have all these unused brushes and tubes of watercolors. And a very nice fountain-style pen. I missed having ink under my nails.
Labels: Amatuer Film Critic Corner, Out and About With Tracy
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Yesterday was my first day back at work and it feels like I never left. I'm already making new SKU numbers for almost the entire cement order and I'm putting new tags on pretty much everything in inventory. It's so dusty in the basement. I want to run a hose up my sinuses.
Matt and I went to see Walk the Line. I really liked it. I think about a third of the running time was musical performances, but they were all great, especially when you consider that Joaquin Pheonix and Reese Witherspoon did all their own singing. Then we walked down the street and had dinner. Matt ate a hamburger that looked like it was still mooing, and I had fried shrimp. We talked about all kinds of stuff. And then he dropped me home. He's swinging by this way on Thursday to go to Barnes and Noble and he said he'd pick me up, but I don't think it's going to happen since I'll be in Bridgehampton sitting in my office. He's going to New Zealand in a week or two, hence the trip to the bookstore. 19 hours on a plane. I can barely take 1.
We got hit pretty hard by the snow on Saturday and Sunday. And now about half of it has melted. I couldn't tell how many inches we got since it blew around so much. There was nothing in the back of the house and a drift creeping up on the door in the front. So we got around 15-20. I don't really know, I stopped watching the weather after the 26th straight hour of snow. I just know that in snowed 21 inches in Central Park (which is like, three hours away from my house) which is the most they've gotten in NYC since they started keeping track of snowfall. I did go out and play for a little bit. I made a snow angel in the driveway, and then ran inside because my pants and my jacket were subsequently soaked. Fun times.
Matt and I went to see Walk the Line. I really liked it. I think about a third of the running time was musical performances, but they were all great, especially when you consider that Joaquin Pheonix and Reese Witherspoon did all their own singing. Then we walked down the street and had dinner. Matt ate a hamburger that looked like it was still mooing, and I had fried shrimp. We talked about all kinds of stuff. And then he dropped me home. He's swinging by this way on Thursday to go to Barnes and Noble and he said he'd pick me up, but I don't think it's going to happen since I'll be in Bridgehampton sitting in my office. He's going to New Zealand in a week or two, hence the trip to the bookstore. 19 hours on a plane. I can barely take 1.
We got hit pretty hard by the snow on Saturday and Sunday. And now about half of it has melted. I couldn't tell how many inches we got since it blew around so much. There was nothing in the back of the house and a drift creeping up on the door in the front. So we got around 15-20. I don't really know, I stopped watching the weather after the 26th straight hour of snow. I just know that in snowed 21 inches in Central Park (which is like, three hours away from my house) which is the most they've gotten in NYC since they started keeping track of snowfall. I did go out and play for a little bit. I made a snow angel in the driveway, and then ran inside because my pants and my jacket were subsequently soaked. Fun times.
Labels: Amatuer Film Critic Corner, Workin' for a livin'
