The Wicker Man

I think the best place to start is with the fact that Nicolas Cage needs to accept that he is 42 years old. And he looks freakishly older than that with new veneers and thinning dyed hair. The main reason I mention these things is that they are what I ended up concentrating on to distract myself from the movie. This is easily the most idiotic cliche' riddled movie I have ever seen. And the most recent movie I'd seen before this one is a Van Damme straight-to-video nugget called The Hard Corps. At least the Van Damme movie didn't actually piss me off. Although I did leave before seeing the final show down at the end. The sole redeeming factor of Wicker Man is that it was filmed primarily in BC and not too far from here. Some filming in Merrit and some on Saturna Island. The production was sunny and quite beautiful. Each scene was lit like a summer paradise.

The main problem for me with this movie was the blatant hey-look-at-this-foreshadowing shit. "Hey, guess what? We're going to show you some adrenalin in his suitcase so you know he's alergic to bees!" And "The girl in the opening scene looks exactly like the girl he is looking for!" And even though you have figuered out the glaringly obvious, you have to sit through 10 more "clues" before they "reveal" the truth. Oh, and speaking of "reveal", having to tell us the background story through exposition from a tragically under-utilized Ellen Burstyn is an insult to first graders everywhere. Other idiotic things include: a woman who lived on an island, in a commune her whole life, that has collagen injected in her lips; Cage being dragged to his doom while they over-dub (in flashback?) someone kicking the shit out of him and Cage screaming "Oh, my legs" while we also hear a snapping noise; every scene Leelee Sobieski is in.

Overall, if I were to employ a rating system, I would give The Wicker Man 3 "Oh-my-legs" out of 10.

BeerFest

We went to see Beerfest on Friday night. We went to the 4:20 showing; we usually try to avoid the seat kicking crowd. The theatre had all of 9 people in it, including us. That is a crying shame because this movie is hilarious. The movie, like most, is split into 3 acts: laying down the premise, outrageously funny training Rocky style, movie slows down until sloppy peak. I am truly sad that this movie only grossed $6,500,000. There should be way more movies like this. Thanks to all you knobs who went to see Wedding Crashers 3 times and ruined R rated comedy for the next 5 years. At least the American Pie franchise didn't gross $300,000,000 per film. This movie has many things going for it. But mostly it's the fact that it is an hard R comedy with:

No Wayans Brothers
No Wilson Brothers
No Vince Vaughn
No Ben Stiller (I know, Stiller in an R movie is pushing it, huh?)

As far as a review goes, I am not going to spell out the plot for you and do a scene by scene description of what I thought was funny. What I will tell you is that I laughed almost as much as Super Troopers. Super Troopers is a cult classic, and deservedly so, but Beerfest stands on its own. And if they actually make Potfest, I will go to the opening day matinee again. So, all you jagoffs that went to see Taladaga nights, get your ass to a movie that's actually funny. Oh, for the young dudes out there, there are more than a few boobies in there, too!

Daily Poop

Still have no takers on the band front. Not even a guitar player to folk out with. I keep bumping up the ad on Live Victoria. I think I literally have to go to shows to conscript people. Oh well, time to drink expensive beer and listen to tunes!

I am going downstairs so the guy who wants to buy the truck can try to fix the window. The truck didn't pass the out of province inspection and we are trying to figure something out about still selling it to him. Fix it up and get it to pass the inspection and sell the damn thing already! He should be here any minute so peace out, you (work wicker talk, sorry).

Not moving yet

Just curious if anyone is reading this. Maybe drop me a comment or just say hi.....I visited the man who owns the condo we were kind of looking at. I let him know we shouldn't really buy yet and he was still trying to find a way for us to make a deal.....in a good way. He took me up the 10th floor and showed me another condo that was having an open house. This one faced west and had an insane view. You can see mountins in two directions and water in three. A little spicy for our blood. A 700 sq/ft apartment condo on the tenth floor costs $300,000. And that's without a realtor being involved. Add another $25,000 for that. Lori and I went back to say hi and look at the condo again. The owner had offered for us to check it out without any interference from him. He showed up later and said that the idea of us renting for a year and maybe buying then had been vetoed by his wife. Makes sense, they can sell it now and get all their money immediately. They have a two bedroom on the 11th floor on the corner. It's amazing up there. It's like you can touch the herons' nests from accross the sgtreet off of the balcony. Lori and I had one last visit to the roof. She said I should have taken her up there first, because it makes you forget that the condo isn't really what we want anyways.

We may have sold the truck, it just needs a safety and the guy will take it. Taking a huge loss on it, but we got four good years out of it before we parked it. I'm off to show Lori the condo on the 10th floor I mentioned earlier. I think we should keep looking to keep our interest up and stay motivated to buy. After we are beter shape we will be experienced perusers.

Does it come in Black?

I have had a few people emailing me from old posts on Live Victoria and think that eventually I should be able to get something going musically in this little bitty town. I should be able to get out this weekend and sing with the new school metal band again. I think I may be able to setup an acoustic jam with another pair of guitar players in the next week or so. I haven'tbeen playing guitar much (or at all, really). I have the hankerin' just not the gumption. I miss playing and I really miss playing STUPID LOUD. Hopefully I get something going....my ears haven't hurt in months........(later) Well, I found out tonight that the band I was semi-jamming with is going with one of the other singers they had been playing with. I hope they do well, they seemed like nice guys, very laid back. They're as tight as hell and have a great sound. I'm going to keep looking for something from the ground up now, I think. Maybe a few extra hours on the acoustic would kick-start some momentum; start writing a few songs.

We are going to meet with a mortgage broker tonight. We want to see what our options are as far as buying something. It seems more idiotic each day that we pay into someone else's investment for somewhere to live. We will probably need to tidy up our situation before we jump into anything. We checked out a condo belonging to a friend from work. It's a little newer, but is a bit strict for my blood. I'm not very good at dealing with all the social intricacies of strata life from the sounds of it. We're just starting to look, so I guess I better keep an open mind. I have a feeling that this is the beginning of a whole bunch of decisions big and small. I'm so good at those! Well, I am if it involves buying a video game system, television or guitar. The answer is usually "I'll take it, does it come in black?"

Three whole updates jammed together from another blog

Been a long time. Now on with the show. Still thinking about writing a script. A whole freakin' season of hockey gone since I last talked about the lockout. Living in Victoria again. Working at a tech outfit as a Helpdesk/scheduler(not as lame as it sounds). Have been singing on and off with a band, but want to get something else going....it doesn't seem to be enough to jam once every couple of weeks. I think I may start playing guitar more and seeing if I can get a stoner outfit going again. Lori is great and is close to getting her reflexology business going. Oh, yeah and we got married last Oct. on Salt Spring Island. Lori got her appendix out. I quit smoking and haven't gained any weight yet! Starting to feel better already. Keep walking as much as possible. Should start swimming and playing hockey soon. Just thought I would get the blog rolling again.

Today I join the war against the neighbors. Lori has been on her own up til now. I'm not very good with confrontation. I'm off to see the landlords who, up til today, will not talk to the people downstairs until they "hear the noise" we are talking about. Well, we have reported it probably 5 or 6 times. They still have yet to knock on the neighbors door. I can hear their TV FROM DOWNSTAIRS!. Sick of it. It's from 8 am til 11pm EVERY DAY. Peace. Gotta find the landlords.

Instant relief from neighbors? Buy a condo, of course! We happened to walk past a sign on top of a car that said to check out this man's condo. We walked a few blocks and convinced each other to walk back and have a look. It was absolutely amazing (my opinion) and I am going to look into whether or not we could figure something out. Whether it be this condo in particular or something else down the road(time-wise). So now this occupies all my waking thought, other than the 42" plasma TV I dreamed VIVIDLY about last night.......

Quick and dirty

First update in four months. I'll keep it quick and detail free.

Got married to the now Mrs. Woods on October 15th, 2005. Everything went better than expected and I am now the happiest man in the world. All of our stuff is in Sidney, BC now, but we will be moving into Victoria due to poor living conditions. Mrs. Woods had her appendix burst and we all came very close to losing her a few weeks back. Feel free to contact her and let her know you are thinking of her, that never hurts does it? I will be leaving for BC on or around the 17th of December to spend xmas with the one I love in the place I love. More, less intense updates to follow.