Blogging to Blog

So I went to see "I am Legend" yesterday. I thought it was a pretty good movie although it was slightly depressing. This isn't a bad quality in a film, it jut caught me off guard. This blog isn't about the movie though. Its about soda. Specifically the cup you put the soda in and the subsequent holders for said cup.
AMC 24 at Stapely Center in Mesa has new cups for their large sodas. No longer is it a giant wax covered cardboard tub like the medium and small, but a slick and smooth plastic cup. A cup your could take home with you, and if your are so inclined, us for a few week. It is of sturdy quality that appears will be able to withstand the ravages of a few runs in the dishwasher. It would also make a great coin cup to save up for movie tickets, especially if you don't have a student ID or go to the matinées, like I do.
Unfortunately all is not well in the land of huge screens and overpriced concessions. The tower of cold, carbonated goodness has one fatal flaw. The cup follows the form of most plastic cups seen in the fast food saturated world of ours. The top of the cup is large and it tapers and the bottom, with a section at the very bottom of the cup that is indented to be an even smaller circle. I am sure you are all familiar with this form, the purpose of which is to make this over sized behemoth fit into the standard cup holder (which is conveniently sized to accommodate a reasonable amount of beverage). Unfortunately the new cup from the theater does NOT fit in the provided cup holder.
Thats right, after spending $5 for $1 of soda full to the brim with ice, no matter how many times you tell them no ice, you also get the privilege of holding said beverage in your hands for the next 2 hours. Sure, you could put the drink on the floor, but then you risk the kicking it over in a fit of laughter or an uncontrollable flinch as an alien bursts from someone's chest cavity.
You could put this ice cold (and usually sweating) beverage in your lap (or nestled in your crotch) but I don't go to "those kind of movies."

After 2 hours I have to say I did enjoy the movie, and my 64 oz ( 24 after ice) of cherry coke. I did not enjoy my 2 cold hands or the fact the my manhood had shriveled itself back into boyhood.

I hope you enjoyed this unnecessary ramble as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Oh, BTW, Christmas was pretty good. I got a bunch of DVDs to watch with my new 5.1 surround sound system. I also got a skateboarding penguin. My wife got pearls, lots of pearls.

Ramblings

All aboard the money train. Next stop, Sequel Station!

I pulled up the TV guide this morning to see which games where on which station and I couldn't help but notice that WGN has decided to go out on a limb and put some truly first rate movies up against Sunday Football. (That was sarcasm BTW).
Up first is the never The NeverEnding Story III, a one star doozy from 1994. After that they have chosen Back to the Secret Garden. They didn't even bother to rate this gem from 2000. I understand the never ending story is well.. never ending, but it still revolves around Bastian and apparently he is now struggling through adolescence. The first one was great. The second one was tolerable. The third one.. well I haven't seen it but I am having trouble coming to grips with the fact that it was actually made. There may be one redeeming factor in the mess in that it does star Jack Black. I still don't think that is enough to make me watch it.
As for the Secret Garden, it was found once so its no longer a secret.

In completely unrelated news: Kristina, Lenny, and I went to the Irish Heritage Festival yesterday. We volunteered at the AAGI booth showing off the greyhounds and answering a lot of questions about adoption and the breed in general. Except for the fact that we where across the way from the beer/whiskey tent, and right next to the DeLorean tent, I was pretty disappointed. The whole thing was pretty low key, and the main draw was the 2 stages of performers (there where supposedly some dancers but I only saw musicians). There where only 2 or 3 other cultural/historical booths, everyone else was a vendor hawking the usual bunch of jewlery, non-irish inspired leatherwork, or Guinness apparel. I wasn't able to go into the actual Irish Heritage Foundation Building they have there, so I probably missed out on a core aspect of the festival. My wife has some lovely pictures on her Flicker account if you have access and feel the need to see alot of pictures with dogs. I'm glad we went, but I felt a little disappointed in the whole ordeal. I guess I was expecting more history lessons and less commerce.

Shoot 'em up

To quote Phil Villarreal of the Arizona Daily Star: "Not one second of the film is anything other than ludicrous, which is exactly why it rocks."

This movie is an action comedy. Not like rush hour where there is some action and some comedy. No.. the action IS the comedy. It is so over the top, so ludicrous, so unbelievable that almost every action sequence had me laughing. Well, actually, this was only if I wasn't cringing at some horrible bit of gore.. like a carrot through a guys head but as soon as I was done cringing I was laughing again. This movie is a ridiculous film that doesn't let things like "premise" or "gravity" get in the way of fun story telling. I know some people will see this and not like the film. This is because they will be fundamentally incapable of accepting the movie for what it is or are just to prude for the standards of our roman-esque society. I guess they could lack that the 12 year old video game violence humor that drives the film, but I doubt it. Those people probably wouldn't be going to see the movie anyway.. unless maybe dragged there by a significant other, in which case the significant other is to blame and not me.

All in all there is no way this movie is 5 star material.. which is exactly why you need to go see it.
Seriously.. the guy gets into a gunfight while having sex, never stops pleasing the lady, then caps it off with a terrible one liner. What a great way to end the summer movie explosion.