Sunday, March 29, 2009

Movies

I was chastised by my brother Willett in Hong Kong for not writing enough. Granted this criticism came when he was a little drunk and called me on my cell phone at noon on Friday at work. It's not his fault. It was late in the evening when he called me. It's just rare to have those drunken phone conversations at your desk stone sober, because they go something like this from my end.

"What?"

"I can't understand you."

"No, I do care what you think."

"I'm not avoiding the question."

"I miss you too."

Etcetera etcetera. But all is good. I'm going to try and get out to see him in the fall perhaps.

I recently rented Oldboy from Netflix. It's a Korean thriller, that will no doubt be redone in America in 5 year much worse. I highly recommend the movie, as the director is a Hitchcock devotee and the end is incredible. It makes me sad that so much great film is from overseas, while we content ourselves with crappy comedies and remakes of asian horror movies. In my opinion, we make worse movies than cars.

Case in point, ConAir was on TNT tonight. It's a good movie from a popcorn action thriller genre, but Nicholas Cage's accent is awful. It's this sort of sometimes cajun, sometimes not accent. It makes me weep. He has been in far worse movies, but I just thought the contrast of what my TV showed me tonight was somewhat glaring. That's all.

Enjoy your week.

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Graham rides a Virgin

So I'm flying out to my friend Tory's wedding in LA this weekend. Tory is awesome and we stayed in touch since college. She is a super wonderful person and while a wedding in Cali two weeks after I've been there isn't the most convenient thing, she's a pretty special person and so I wanted to make an appearance.

So I decided to take Virgin America out there and then use my free flight on JetBlue on the redeye back. So let me give you my thoughts on Virgin.

* So I'm blogging from the airplane. This is cool. This makes an airplane and a bus I've blogged from. I need to find a boat and a train with wifi and I'll be all set. I was actually able to pull up the picture of the actual plane I'm flying on, so that's pretty sweet. Here it is:

* This flight is full of kids. I suppose I should say 20-somethings. I normally fly American as I have status and the average age on those flights is far older. It makes me feel old.
* Not having the exit row sucks. But I wasn't willing to pay $100 beans for it either.
* There's not a lot of room in this seat. The girl in front of me moves alot. So I'm terrified of the seatback coming back and cracking my screen, which I know is a common complaint for laptop users on airplanes.
* Virgin has this cool interactive touchscreen entertainment system called Red. Sweet right. Well, actually not so much. The touchscreen thing is annoying. The girl behind me keeps changing the channel or texting, or playing tetris and it's like she's poking me in the back. It's not very hard. Just hard enough to be mildly annoying.
* Maybe it's all the young people, but this is a sleepy flight. For leaving Logan at 4, there were a lot of people sleeping and window shades closed. This worries me. When I fly, I like to be able to see out the window, especially at take off. When the shades are drawn, it feels like I'm in some bizarre motion machine and I keep waiting for the takeoff. Call me crazy, but if the wing is on fire, I want to see it before the captain makes a calm announcement about it.

I think that's all I got so far. I'll write more when I maybe order food. You do that through the touch screen also. They have some commie roast beef on wheatberry bread or whatever the hell that is. I might also just snack and save myself for In N Out.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Evacuation Day

Today is Evacuation Day. This is the day that the Brits left the City of Boston after the Colonists took to the high ground outside. However, it is also St. Patrick's Day. This is no coincidence. The heavily Irish legislature back in the day was looking for a way to celebrate today and they found the British evacuation occurred on the same day.

Which means that I was off today. I'm not sure how long I'll be working for the Commonwealth of MA, so I will take this opportunity any chance I get. It's almost as awesome as Confederate Memorial Day in Texas which also falls on the same day as MLK day. Not kidding.

So I was home and was watching daytime TV, and was pleased to see that Maury was on. I think all he does is paternity tests now. But they are awesome. Brothers with the same girl who want to know whose baby it is. I'm always amazed when the girl brings the guy on who she thinks was the father and it turns out not to be him. Then she goes running backstage inconsolable. I mean if you count back roughly nine months, how many guys could there be. I certainly wasn't a prude back in the day, but these people apparently get around.

If you're looking for more in-depth information on Maury, you can go to his link. You'll find awesome stories like this one:


Sholonda first came to the show because she suspected Billy, her boyfriend of 20 years, was living a secret double life and cheating on her. On the night of her birthday, when Billy was supposed to take her out for dinner at Red Lobster, she believed he was with another woman. Sholonda's suspicions were true. Billy failed the lie detector test. After the show, Sholonda and Billy stayed together, but they soon returned because Sholonda needed to reveal a secret to Billy. Out of revenge, Sholonda cheated on Billy with his own brother, Freddie. What happened?


You'll have to click on the link to find out.

Monday, March 09, 2009

That's what friends are for

So this is my last night in San Diego. I saw my friend Waka's show last night and it was awesome. I'm not just saying that. I would tell you if I just liked him. I really hope the show makes it past this workshop and doesn't allow itself to get dumbed down for kids. There was a lot of adult jokes in there and yet also enough pratfalls to work for the kids. It was a really physical show, and my friend has a topless scene, which the ladies no doubt enjoy.

The weather has been great. I hooked up today with another friend of mine who works for the California Emergency Management Agency, CALEMA. I always think of the bad guy in the 2nd Indiana Jones when he says that. He's a trip and we got to catch up. Its nice when you have work relationships bloom into friendships. I get a kick out of the Guinness signs to make St. Patrick's Day an official holiday. I guess those marketing geniuses never lived in Massachusetts before. I will miss this, one day, when I am no longer employed by the great Commonwealth.

Off to bed, so I can wake up stupid early and stand-by for flights all day to get home. Sweet.

Saturday, March 07, 2009

Go F Yourself San Diego

Good Morning,

Greetings from the exciting city of San Diego. I find myself out here to see my good friend's show at the La Jolla Playhouse. My other friend Sam came out to hang this weekend as well. So while my hard working actor friend was in his show last night, Sam and I took on Downtown La Jolla. It sort of reminded me of a Greenwich with a more laid back style and a view of the Pacific. I was amazed at the amount of galleries. Sam and I actually stumbled into one gallery that was giving out free wine, and we learned all about Warhol and some other dude who uses word puns.

But we are staying in some part of La Jolla that looks like an office park. Huge complexes of rentals anchored by the I-5 and Rockbottom Brewery and TGI Friday's. Not quite what I was expecting.

We're off to brunch. I'm sure this will contain egg whites and avocados. Sweet.