Sunday, February 15, 2009

3 movie strikes

we are batting 0 for 3 on movies right now. i’ve given up TV, do i have to give up movies too :)

it started with surfer, dude, which was directed by S.R. bindler. bindler was known for his hands on a hardbody documentary which i think was hilarious & unfortunately real – i now know a little more about longview, TX than i’d like too. surfer, dude didn’t make any sense to me. it was a hour & a half long movie with matthew mcconaughey running around with his shirt off looking for waves while the “bad-guy” producer was trying to cast his character in a “real-world” TV/video game. from time-to-time woody harrelson & willie nelson would make appearances as pot smoking weirdos & hot chicks would run around with their tops off wearing nothing but bikini bottoms. i couldn’t categorize this movie. was it a surfer movie, a T&A movie, a pot-smoking movie? i think it was just the worst of all three movie types & now i’m going to try & forget that i watched it.

bad movie #2 – nights in rodanthe: this isn’t just me not giving into a sappy love story; kristin couldn’t stand it either. there was little to no dialogue in the entire movie, yet this couple played by richard gere (how did he ever end up with cindy crawford) & diane lane (i think she’s hotter now than she was when she starred as cherry valance in the outsiders more than 25 years ago) fell madly in love. the director, george c. wolfe, was all over the place with the camera & cut ever little bit of dialogue or story telling short. it was a disaster of a movie.

we capped our bad movie experiences off with 2 days in paris. there was a story (opposite of surfer, dude) & there was dialogue (opposite of nights in rodanthe); however, the characters didn’t fit one bit. adam goldberg’s (i remember him from dazed & confused) character was this jerk-off interior designer from NY with a bunch of mean one-liners awaiting his girlfriend played by julie delpy. goldberg’s character was allergic to & got sick by everything in sight, yet he lived in NY, one of the “dirtiest” cities in the U.S., had tattoos all over his chest, arms, & back, & he smoked, & to top it off here he was back-packing across europe with his girlfriend who was from paris. his character just didn’t fit the part. if he just wouldn’t have gotten so sick by everything in sight i would have felt completely different about this movie.

juno awaits us courtesy of netflix – wish us luck because we can’t take another bad movie.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

cutting the cord

no we didn’t just have a baby, or go totally green & move completely to wind power. i (hopefully kristin will tag along too) am cutting the cord from the TV for the next month. i’d like to think that cutting the cord will last longer, but i’m not willing to say forever just yet.

i’ve suggested time & time again that TV is a huge waste. although we have one of those super high-def, xyz P resolution, flat & wide, etc. type TVs, i have to laugh a bit internally when anyone talks about their TV specs. when did it become normal to spend thousands of dollars on a TV? folks are so hard-up about their TVs, DVD, & blu-ray players. they talk about how crisp & clear the picture is & how the people they are watching look real – if you want real people get your ass (i’m talking to myself here too) off the sofa & go & be social with real people – it doesn’t get any crisper or clearer than that!

so what am i hoping to accomplish by cutting the cord from the TV during this next month? no, i don’t expect my life to get fantastically better, or that i’ll be speaking 5 languages, etc. i do however hope to enjoy the simple things in life – like spending quality time with the love of my life kristin, relaxing with peace & quite, really be able to focus on something versus having the noise of a TV in the background, getting back in touch with music, accomplishing more of those home to-dos during the week so my weekends are spent crossing items of a check-list, & while it may not seem a big deal to many getting more sleep. if that’s “all” that i gain from this no TV thing, then i think those things alone are reason enough to cut the cord permanently.

since being home today after work (6:30 PM) i spent an hour playing with payton, took payton on a walk to grab the mail, rid the backyard of payton’s poop (while not attractive or exciting it needed to be done & i’m simply being honest about what i’ve done tonight), listened to a many long lost CDs to include a girlie mix that eryn compiled for me & then i reconnected with the smiths & james taylor. i “read” the march issue of bon appetit, did all the dishes which included giving the stove-top a good scrubbing, prepared the coffee for tomorrow morning, & finally dinner for myself.

kristin arrived home about 30 minutes ago (8:50 PM) after a long day of work & volunteering at the resale shop as part of her junior league provisional year. we shared the news from our day, then i proceeded to check & respond to a few e-mails, & now i am writing this post. next, i plan to prepare a water bottle for an early morning spin class i’m going to take at the gym – it’ll be my first spin class in 5+ months. see, this no TV thing is already paying off!

prior to falling asleep i hope to turn a few pages of the wisdom of crowds, by james surowieck which kristin was kind enough to pick up for me at Barnes & Nobles today while grabbing another one of those
vampire books for herself.

ask yourself, what you would be giving up if you too were to cut the cord on the TV. i’m confident in saying that you'd be missing nothing as important as the things you are already giving up by leaving it on.