You know, it's almost Academy Award time again and yes, VE watches every minute of the self-congratulatory mayhem with popcorn in hand!
It also means I'm in full movie watching mode too. It's not easy getting ready for the Academy Awards. You have to get yourself through the roller coaster of nominated movies; many of which and not exactly happy-joy-feel good ones.
Of course first up was La La Land and I actually watched this legally in a movie theater right in our little town here in Spain. For essentially $5.50, you get to watch some first run movies here. It's very interesting because they just show the movie. No snacks, no previews, no ads. Just the movie. When I was in Thailand back in November, we caught a movie in the theater and they showed ads, then USA previews, then ads, then a remembrance for their passing king, then ads, then Thai previews, then more ads and finally the movie. I kid you not, there were probably 25 ads to sit through to see the movie. But I digress...
Sometimes at our theater here in Spain, they forget to turn the sound on and have to rewind and start it over again. It's very 1970s amusing...back when they actually had movie staff in the booth overseeing the projection, not some automated machine that if it does go wrong you have to actually get up out of your seat, hike the mile to the snack lobby to tell some pimple headed teenager that the movie in theater 27 has no sound because he is the only employee you can visibly see other than the ticket Nazi up front. By the time they get somebody who knows anything in there to reset the system, enough time has gone by that they can't show it anyway as it would disrupt all the subsequent showings scheduled so they just give you a free voucher to come in another time. But I digress...
I could tell you what I thought about La La Land, but then I'd need to announce a "SPOILER ALERT" here. No, spoiler alerts aren't like Amber Alerts. You don't need to be on the lookout for over-dramatic plots or stomach churning special effects realism. In fact, spoiler alerts should be about the three week old potato salad hidden in the back of the lowest refrigerator shelf that you won't see until you are desperately hungry and learn the hard way why people actually check their shelves periodically.
You also have to pace yourself for the Academy Awards. In these days of binge watching Game of Thrones or Breaking Bad, movies up for Academy Awards should not be binge watched back to back or you'll end up going to sleep and dreaming of Natalie Portman pulling a wounded soldier from Hacksaw Ridge only to leave him with an octopus looking alien living in the mountains in the Pacific Northwest where they are home schooling their little aliens and scheming to rob Texas banks so they can drill for oil and get rich. Trust me, mashing up the slew of this years movies doesn't leave one with a good night's sleep.
So if you are wondering where VE is, he is probably suffering through "Jackie" or "Loving" or "Silence" or "Moonlight" or any one of the half dozen unhappy movies plying for awards because they are so moving. Fortunately I can see the Big Lebowski for the 257th time and cleanse my movie watching palate in between these. It's like eating chocolate chip cookies in between eating your vegetables. Sure, the vegetables are meaningful and good for you and every once in a while they might even be enjoyable but the cookies you can never get enough of.
Thursday, January 26, 2017
La La La La Land
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Saturday, December 24, 2016
Fantastical Christmas Nonsense
Ah, here we are ready for another Christmas. I would be remiss if I didn't point out some of my favorite "fantastical nonsense" moments from three of the classic Christmas cartoons we all watch: Frosty the Snowman, Charlie Brown Christmas and How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
So, here you go:
- When Santa leaves Karen on her roof in the snow at the end of the show
- How the ornaments the grinch shoots off the tree with a walking stick pool cue go into a mouse hole in the living room and mysteriously end up coming out the rooftop gutter and down into the sack below
- How Snoopy's Christmas ornaments somehow also bring Charlie Brown's tree more branches and leaves when it started with about a dozen needles on it
- The never-ending roast beast that the Grinch cuts and doesn't get smaller
- The lack of furniture in the first house the Grinch removes Christmas from. I mean, come on, the house is completely empty. Was it a safe house?
- Wondering just where the Grinch shopped to accumulate so many bags in which to fill the Christmas items he takes from Whoville
Oh....and just so you know, remember all those loud noisy toys they got in Whoville? Yep, they all somehow ended up in the plaza below our house here in Spain. Wonderful for our peace and quiet....
Merry Christmas to all my former blogger friends and to all my current comment hackers putting spam on my post comments!
- VE
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Sunday, August 14, 2016
VE returns and weighs in on an important topic
Oh yes, VE is still around and watching...
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Wednesday, January 20, 2016
The Dude weighs in on all the 2016 celebrity deaths
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Wednesday, September 16, 2015
Spain is Different
So...having now lived in another country (Spain) for 9 months I can officially give birth to some observations...
- No matter how slow I walk, there is an older Spaniard that I will have to pass
- I have not developed the mentality yet to know that the entire sidewalk is mine such as the locals do here. Since I didn't pass the "walk slow" test, I am now finding that no matter how few a group of Spaniards are on the sidewalk, they can somehow manage to occupy and block me from going forward at my ridiculous American speed.
- In the USA we have 25 different EVERYTHING when you want it. In Spain, you have one of a great many things that they would deem unimportant. Those things that are very important, you probably have 4-6 choices.
- The great part about the rain is that it comes so little that when it does, nobody bothers to go to their shops and open them. And because of that, everybody stays home anyway. It's a win-win...unless you are out of food at your place.
- I used to have a "rain bike" to ride only when it rains. Now I don't ride when it rains; don't need to because it'll be sunny again tomorrow. Now I have a "wind bike". This is a heavier bike that won't blow me off the bridge in a cross-wind. That's a good thing...
- I thought I could learn some Spanish by translating Facebook comments, Twitter comments and other social media from here. Nope... They don't translate well when they use slang, local dialect and abbreviations.
- It's still amazing to wrap our heads around the fact that nearly everything here is so much less expensive than in the USA. Dental office doesn't cover your private Spanish insurance? No problem, just pay cash...it's less than your co-pay was in the USA anyway!!!
- Taking the train is more expensive than flying. They have a lot of dirt cheap plane tickets around Europe. I'm bummed about this because I love traveling by train. It's such less hassle and I enjoy watching the countryside and being able to get up and walk around without every other person staring at you...
- All hills here (and they are seriously all over 10% grade going up to 30%) are always steepest right as you reach the top. It's as if when they constructed it they said, "whoops...we are coming up lower than we expected" and they just increased the gradient! Fun for biking...let me tell you!
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Thursday, August 27, 2015
Terrifying Things
And just what does a heart-loving worm look like in action? I thought you’d never ask!
These guys are certified barf-arific. Do the world a favor and get your dog-loving friends some heartworm medication for Christmas.
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Sunday, May 17, 2015
Local Fad
Okay, only in America (well...maybe Japan) would an airport's former carpet design be so popular that they would have T-shirts and socks sold from the design. Oh, and they even had the carpet as a character used as a mascot! Really? A piece of carpet is a mascot?
Of course, this is a fad that will later be looked on fondly by those that endured it and say "remember back in 2015 when we had the Portland Airport carpet fad?"
You know...like pet rocks and all those other crazy fads over the years.
As for the actual carpet? It was so popular and synonymous with Portland that they put in a very similar design else people would revolt! Meanwhile, the original carpet was sold and they are selling pieces of it for stupid people that would buy stuff like that.
I just don't need a piece of worn carpet trod on by 200,000 travelers but thanks for asking...
But then again, I don't have to worry about all that now. I'm retired and living in the south of Spain where they don't have such strange nonsense. Until I ran into this while biking on a back road close by...
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Monday, April 06, 2015
More things you didn't know about
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Monday, December 29, 2014
2015...where work is for the weak
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This is our beach. Well...not ours personally but within a 2 minute walk... |
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Here's the town Castle...no, we don't live in it but every town should have a castle! |
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This is a walkway along the beach so we don't even have to walk on the beach if we don't want to...goes for miles! |
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We will be living in the "old town". Since the town is 2800 years old, that is very old! |
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Tuesday, December 23, 2014
Christmas is for...
Once again Christmas is upon us. Let us not forget the meaning of Christmas.
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