another summer dream

We went to see Spiderman tonight and it was pretty good. Spiderman wasn't ever my favorite super hero (I liked Batman and the X-MEn) but this movie was worth the watch and had an awesome cast. And it washed away the hideous memory of the last trilogy (I still hope Kirsten Dunst fired whoever told her to do those movies).

The main level of the house is slowly coming together. Sort of. More or less. >.> As long as you ignore the mountain of packing paper slowly avalanching over the family room.

Today I discovered there are spiders in the basement. So now I'll have to do laundry in boots. Tuesday I discovered the dryer had decided to shuffle off its heating coil so I've been drying things out on the deck. Hey, it's a heatwave out there anyway so I might as well cut down the electricity bill anyway, right?

And I found a new brand of cleaners at the grocery store- the brand is IQ and it's made of sustainable, eco-friendly stuff and after you buy the bottle you just get refill packs. So far the glass cleaner and all-purpose cleaners work great and they smell awesome without causing me any asthmatic issues so I am happy.

The only really super annoying thing going on was me having to find new doctors, dentists, optometrists, all that stuff. Optometry was pretty easy, and I am getting new contacts ordered already! The dentists on the other hand... ARGH. I called THREE dentists today during their hours as posted on their websites and even one of them as spoken to me by the cheery little answering machine.... NOT ONE OF THEM WAS OPEN/ANSWERING PHONES. WTAF??! One, okay I get that, two sure bad luck, but three...? Was today some Dentist Holiday? I'm going to try three others tomorrow and if none of them answer either I am giving up and trying that stupid 1800Dentist thing.

Of course, one of the optometry places had a receptionist who couldn't be bothered to check which insurances they take... Because that's a great business practice.

Yeah, I'm super boring this week. You'd seriously not believe the angst-fit I had on Tuesday when the dryer wouldn't work. I'm kind of blaming the stress from the move because with Brynden being at drill and working longer hours with everything I am kind of unpacking and arranging and sorting by myself and tbh a lot of the stuff is not mine it's his and it just sort of feels weird still to paw through his stuff.
... Not weird enough that I won't do it, of course. I mean someone has to go throw out all his old socks or hide the ugly shirts in the depths of the giant closet.... pointedly dump any undesirable decorations in the man-cave... all that stuff.

Oh, and I started watching Dallas. DON'T JUDGE ME. It's actually... sort of fun. Soapy stupid ridiculous fun. But I'll be honest and admit to having watched the old one when TNT used to rerun it. OMG Lucy showed up! For five seconds. I liked Lucy and her stupid spoiled teenage antics on the old show. Also I hate Christopher. I get that he's supposedly the 'good one' but ugh he's so damn sanctimonious that I'd prefer Elena and what's-her-name just hook up and collectively walk out on him. Or strike up a ridiculous menagee trois with John Ross. He's more fun anyway. Srsly. He was getting kinda kinky in the sex tape thing. >.>

Speaking of ridiculous family dynasties...

POLITICAL ANIMALS. HAVE YOU SEEN THIS???! IT'S CAESAR!!! Um, well, Ciaran Hinds anyway, and he's un-married to Sigourney Weaver and seducing starlets and drinking. And Sigourney is being the better version of Hilary Clinton and wants to be president, and it's awesome. I really only turned it on out of idle curiosity but homg the first episode was amazing and I now have to watch the next one.

OMG U GUYZ! All the crappy SyFy original movies I've watched/mocked with my friends and parents over hte years and I MISSED THE ONE WITH EMILIA CLARKE'S ADORABLENESS?!!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1733732/
Annoyed dinosaurs are resurrected and wreak havoc!! HOW THE HELL DID I MISS THIS GEM? Also, I love IMDB because the continuity/factual goofs list is about a hundred times longer than the plot. XD

If I ever catch this thing on re-runs... omg. Sorry, Brynden. I want to see this more than Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, ngl. Apparently the dinosaurs are giant angry skeletons.

Does Syfy actually pay people to write these things? Like with real money, or just in Mexican vicodin or what...?

( Hunger Games movie blabbing )


In other news Grandpa turned 99 without incident. :) But he is getting weaker and his balance is off- though he can still outbrain you, recite Tennyson and Byron and fix your clock while you stand around looking ignorant. Oh and garden. My uncle was sighing because one of his friends is all "You can't let your father work in the yard! At his age!" And Uncle was like "... he's 99 years old, I think he has the right to do wtf ever he wants. And besides, YOU go tell him no. I'll bring the popcorn." Cause grandpa's response is/will be "Aw, shit. Get out of my way." And then you do, because trust me you don't want to have someone with 40 years of teaching high school (and who spent ww2 in the Pacific) to rip into you.

But grandpa is frustrated because his hands are too shaky to do any fine wire work or carving, and of course the fainting/dizzy moments happen and that pisses him off too.

OMG. So his basement is The Cave of Wonders, and he brought out a bunch of them. Including a pair of lamps he found somewhere in India in 1944, which he handed off to me. They're these awesome carved wood things so yey? Then he produced HIS father's college notebooks. Dated Spring term of 1906 and 1904. OMFG. That was trippy, and it made me ashamed of myself because my great-grandfather had KILLER penmanship, and his notes look so awesome. Mine look like a half-literate 5-year-old got loose with ink. o__O And he was using a pen you dipped. I don't even know.

THEN came Grandpa's maternal grandma's (so my... um... great-great grandmother?) elementary school math book, and then his paternal grandma's book of Medicine (that one copyright 1886).

I amused myself for a whole afternoon flipping through the Medicine book- it's for home-made "cures" and treatments for a whole slew of illnesses (some of them I have NO IDEA what they are in modern speak) and then recipes for the syrups, poultices, injections, etc. And then some recipes for food because why not? I think this thing is 1886 Google. I love the recipes for food too but I have a feeling it would take serious trial and error trying to figure out how to cook them in today's ovens because while the ingredient measurements are decipherable the cooking instructions are like "place in a warm oven" or "a hot oven" until it is "baked." >.> Hokay. Also I learned that chloroform should only be administered for asthma attacks by a professional. So, just in case you're at home giving yourself chloroform, stop that.

Great-Grandma's book of arithmetic was also upsetting. I think this roughly translates to 3rd grade-ish? Anyway they had formulas and questions in there I couldn't answer. o___O Granted, I suck at math to start with but I'm upset that my great-great grandparents probably knew more of it in elementary than I did in High School. Yeesh.

But Grandpa got out his college woodworking notebook and that was awesome. Yes, woodworking in college. I don't know, it was 1938?

For reference, on this side of my family: grandpa was born in 1913 and his dad was born sometime in the 1880s, and his grandparents were all older so they were born in general 1860s-50's. That whole string of them all somehow avoided having kids until 30-ish except for the one cousin over there who got pregnant at 13 (in 1900s) and they just didn't talk about her.

My mother tried to explain Game of Thrones to grand-pa. THAT was interesting. He did not see the point of it "One of those stories like grandma used to watch" (referring to my grandma who passed away years ago). Which... I guess? Only lots of sex and violence added. And twincest. Mom left out the twincest, although considering the contents of Grandpa's 'English Theater from Beowulf to Shakespeare' coursework I don't see why she bothered. Grandpa was the one who introduce me to the play 'Tis Pity She's a Whore- and the entire plotline of that is about brother/sister incest and it was first performed in like the 1630's. If you haven't heard of it, it's worth a read-through.

Anyway, he doesn't like Criminal Minds either. He prefers NCIS, Mentalist and RFDTV's Polka Hour. x____x I may have German ancestry but oh god don't make me polka. *cries*

He's also annoyed because the one news station he liked now has some new announcer who talks too fast and Grandpa's like "What is this shit? They don't teach anything in schools these days! Enunciate!" So he just watches sports, and bitches about the president/politics. I find it kind of fascinating when he tees off on politics cause he will rant and be like "back in the 30's it was this other thing..."

Anyway, it was fun. I had hella bad asthma attacks though so I didn't get to be as social with the fam as I wanted to but oh well.

Omg Once Upon a Time has me totally addicted to it now.

Meanwhile I'm counting down til Sons of Anarchy returns to me, and Game of Thrones... Borgias. COME BACK TO ME TEEVEE. *cries*

I have a stomach bug again I think. I've been laying down all day and watching Being Human and then Once Upon a Time... and this weird movie called Devil.

Apparently this had M Night Sha-- I'm not going to try spelling him, I get his name wrong all the time. That guy. I didn't see his name on it while watching but again, I'm kind of out of it. The movie was pretty nifty and well-done for what it was: people trapped in elevator with Satan. Panic ensues as everybody dies one a time.

However, the point of it was somehow that everybody was dying cause they were like being collected as Satan's Pokemon cards but random other people died around it with no explanation about what they were dying for. AWKWARD, Satan. I expect more tidiness of you!

I kept getting the feeling that there was important information/suspense building left on a cutting room floor somewhere, like why is the detective now suddenly considering the superstitious Latino guard's theory about SATAN after thirty minutes?? Who the hell committed suicide by busting the glass out of a 22nd story skyscraper and jumping? WHY? They even had a rosary in their hand? WHYYYYY? Did Faust chicken out at the last minute or WHAT?

Don't even know for sure who all was really dead in the elevator. :/ People kept dying and the others did not even check for a pulse!! No attempt to stop blood flow. Nothing. Is it because it's in New York? I don't get this.

And the only character in the elevator I cared about was Token Tough Black Dude who apparently was trapped by Satan for beating the shit out of people. I get anger is a sin and all but really, movie? Really? Dude living on the roughass streets as a kid is less redeemable than girl who married for money or the guy who got drunk and drove his car into some lady, or... Oh, fine, whatever.

It's not a movie I'd watch twice but it beat the hell out of another hour of Law and Order.

THIS MOVIE.

First of all, it's about how Nicholas Cage and Clay Morrow fought in the Holy Land because Sandor Clegane ordered them to and then they got tired of Sandor's bullshit and hightailed it out but then they ran into LE PLAGUE. Now they are in this city somewhere in Ye Medieval Europaland and there's a witch who is turning everyone into newts but then they don't get better they just sort of turn into welty zombies. So Nick and Clay get suckered into going with this old knight and a priest and a altar boy who wants to be a knight who I just kept calling Podrick to take Adorabelle Dearheart who is The Black Wiiiiitch oooooh off to a monastary that is a frillion miles of mountains away.

This movie wants me to think that Nick is the star but I know better, this movie is actually about Sir Clay Morrow of Awesomeland. Seriously I did not even care that Nick Cage was around and why was he blonde anyway? Who looked at him and went "We can totally make you pass as a knight if we dip you in peroxide first!"

I did really like the sword fights. Go fightmaster whoever you were! However... we have GOT to talk with this director about how he decided to pretend he was in the Sahara with bad greenscreens and worse cgi and quite possibly fake sand as well. WTH WAS WITH THAT? If you are going to make stuff look unreal then do it proper- you get UNREAL with it! Haven't you people been secretly watching Spartacus like the rest of us??

Anyway. It's nice that no one in this thing bothers with an accent at least, but it does kind of give the hilarious impression that the British-esque Europeans don't notice that these guys are clearly from some other continent. Especially Al Capone who I did not realize had that accent naturally- I thought he just did that for Boardwalk Empire but maybe not!

So the guys haul Adorabelle across the damn continent and she's in a wagon and there's an obligatory rickety rope bridge and the whole reason they make this journey in the first place is because there is only ONE book of spells to cure witches left in the entire world.One left. Despite all the burning of witches they've been doing (witnessed in the first minutes of the movie where Some Priest burns a triple set of them).

( Further thoughts cut in case you would be upset at being spoiled by this piece of HIGH QUALITY cinema for realz )

Watching s3 now via Netflix and have decided to be a responsible grown-ass person and beg Brynden to torrent s4 for me so I can has it without waiting after I finish s3.

I AM SUCH A GROWN UP ADULT RIGHT?

OMG MiBs may find this and arrest me. Oh wellz. Jax Teller is totes worth this.

ALSO THERE IS A THING CALLED BEAUTY AND THE BEAST: A DARK TALE AND IT THE LULZIEST THING I HAVE SEEN SINCE SHARKTOPUS AND YOU NEED TO SEE IT TOO.

Ok anyway, s3 of Sons of Anarchy is so far awesome because there are IRISH PEOPLE KILLING PEOPLE. AND PRIESTS.

And also per capita their shoot-out quotient has gone waaay up. Like damn are they buying bullets by the kilo? WHY DO I LOVE THESE PEOPLE SO MUCH? I THINK IT IS ALL THE SHOOTING. ITS LIKE THE UNIT WITH LESS STUPID MANUFACTURED WIFE!ANGST (srsly why didn't you just leave that bs on Army Wives, people??!).

Bobby Elvis was married to someone named Precious. NO. REALLY. IT IS HER NAME. AND SHE IS ANGRY.

TRIXIE! From Deadwood! She's Irish! OMG.

I love Clay. Even if I keep wishing he'd get giant and turn red and shoot things with a giant gun and save the world. But hey nobody's perfect.


OMG I need to catch up on Secret Circle.

Also, True Blood finale was made of WTF. I think this was a good season setting up a fun fun fun next season but I still sort of wish we could have just timeskipped to next season because I need more Russel Edgington in my life. In a Post-Russel Edgington World, with Russel Edgington! AND STEVE NEWLIN HAS FANGS OMFG. He is going to be the most enthusiastic mass-murdering vampire ever to unlive. You can totally tell he's just swapped sides. Him and Russell will totally be besties and murder zillions of people and be happy and perky and obnoxious.

I sort of hope his wife gets to stake him.


IN OTHER NEWS.

I just watched Beastly and I Am Number Four back-to-back which was WAY TOO MUCH ALEX PETTYFER.

Beastly was as awful as I expected it to be. Except that when they made Alex Pettyfer ugly they just sort of made him look kind of badass and like he'd had some kind of accident that had left him bald and with multiple cuts? And also tattoos. So he sort of looks like a punk badass who had gotten an ironic flower tattoo on his arm. Then he un-uglied and I was like "Wow for the first time this story ends with a downgrade? Idgi?"

I Am Number Four made slightly more sense than I expected but mostly I just want that dog (OMG SHERRIFF BULLOCK was there too!).

Oh and also this thing:

( MY HARRY POTTER HUSBAND... sry rl!hubs? )