Birthmonth Update

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

Well… I’ve been slacking on this blog. There’s no other way around it. I’ve been busy with work & activities… and my last entry had a lot of pictures… and I have a girlfriend now… so yeah, time is in shorter supply than usual. Let’s see… I think the DMV & becoming an official Californian was the last update… so let’s go from there. Last week started with Monday’s celebration for our softball team (from six months ago) and our 2^nd place finish. We went to Jillian’s in SOMA… and basically had a few beers, snacks, played some pool & caught up with coworkers from the different departments that we don’t see regularly. It was a fantastic time… and Jillian’s is a nice place. I highly recommend it for a chill night out.

Wednesday night was the Gotye concert with Bubbles, her new beau & a few of their friends at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium. Now, I hadn’t heard of Gotye until Bubbles told me about the concert… but the kid has some skills. His big hit right now is “Somebody That I Used to Know” which is incredibly catchy but most of his music (I think he played the whole album) was pretty good… and of course, the company was great, which is always good. Again, I highly recommend seeing him in concert while ticket prices are somewhat reasonable.

Thursday night was a going away party for one of my coworkers at the Bubble lounge near Jackson Square (the one here in SF, not New Orleans). The atmosphere was very chill & it was a bunch of my coworkers with a magnum of champagne, some bites & a few drinks afterwards… and it was a fun time. We all kind of bonded reminiscing about songs that came on there… and then sharing our prom songs, big songs when we were in high school… and even first skate date songs (yeah, some of my coworkers where big in the early 80’s). Afterwards, a few of us went to the Irish Bank for some more moderately priced snacks & beverages… and basically my dinner was about a pound of cheese & a liter or two of alcohol. Not too bad. I highly recommend the snacks at Bubble Lounge though. They had some great sliders & bruschetta.

Friday was kind of the catch up night with regards to laundry, cleaning the room, dishes and… I’ll admit it, catching up on a few shows. For example, holy sh*t if you haven’t been watching “Couples Therapy” and the magical transition & story that is DMX… then you need to get on that. The man is going through some REAL sh*t right now… and being a huge fan, I’m happy for him… but I’ll tell you right now… he cried like a man does when he finally reaches “that point” and… it’s heartbreaking. That’s all I’m going to say, you’ve gotta check out the rest… and Wednesday is the newer episode… and it looks like it’ll be EPIC!!! He meets up with his mama…

Saturday was hanging out with Dizzy. We started by going to the Ferry Building’s Farmers Market because we were promised a celebration of goats… which meant the possibility of petting a few & getting our pictures taken with some cute delicious goats… and hopefully some kabob & goat cheese as well. Well, we had the cheese & there were long lines for the meat… but we could not find any baby goat photo ops. Perhaps the market crowd spooked them or something & they had to leave early… I got some good cheese though so not a complete loss. After that, we went to the Cherry Blossom Festival in Japantown… and that was a lot of fun & gorgeous weather… and we found a plethora of nerdy things in the various shops & stores to make it worth while. Including what we spent the late evening hours watching…

First up was “Fantastic 4” but not the one that you’ve all seen & probably wretched about. No… this is the one before that… made in 1994… but looks like it was made in the early 80’s. This is the movie that was produced on a budget of about a million dollars… and produced by Roger Corman… but was also done so that the studio could retain the rights & was never released to the public because it was so god-awful. I’m not joking. Google it. Anyway, this bootleg gem was found at the Cherry Blossom festival so I thought that I would purchase it at a reasonable price & check it out. Fun fact: I consider myself a bit of a movie buff… and I didn’t recognize any of the Fantastic 4… but I did notice a few of the bit character actors in the first five minutes of the movie. One was George Gaynes, who is most popular for being the father figure of “Punky Brewster” and the commandant of the “Police Academy” franchise. He was a professor for about 43 seconds. Also, there was a pre-teen girl named Mercedes McNab playing a young Sue Storm-Richards… but you may recognize her more as the spoiled brat blonde girl from the “Addams Family” movies. I know I did. She was in there for about a minute. Yeah. THEY were the big stars of this comic book franchise movie. Anyway, the movie was pretty bad… in the most amazing ways. I recommend watching it with friends because otherwise you’ll hate yourself… but don’t expect anything to make sense.

Next up was a 1974 TV movie version of “Wonder Woman” starring a blonde bombshell as Princess Diana. Yup, not even a brunette… and even worse, IN FULL OUTFIT WITH LONG SLEEVES & PANTS!!! That’s pretty much unforgivable from the get-go. However, there was one slightly redeeming quality to it. For the first hour or so of this movie… the evil mastermind is shown in a way to hide his face & identity somewhat… but anybody who’s cool know who it is from the beginning. Blah blah blah plot blah blah… then the big reveal as the “nemesis” is…. KAAAAAAAHN!!! Okay, so more specifically, the Great Ricardo Montelban… and basically, he just such a smooth mother f**ker in the last 10-12 minutes of the movie… that you almost forget that Wonder Woman is there except for the occasional lifeless stare as he’s talking. Anyway, it was interesting for a TV movie made nearly 40 years ago… but yeah, watch the Linda Carter series if you want a REAL Wonder Woman.

The third selection from the festival was a title I bought simply because of the title… “Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS” which I’m sure was the inspiration for the Rob Zombie parody trailer “Werewolf Women of the SS” in Grindhouse. I was watching it with Dizzy & Batgirl… and spoiler alert, the movie STARTS with a warning saying it’s based on actual events over a speech from Hitler… and then about 14 seconds in, you see for first bare-chested sex scene… and then about a full minute later, it’s first torture-execution… so within two minutes the movie was turned off due to the company I was watching it with. Pure snuff film I guess… but I’ll let you know how it is… or maybe I won’t. I did pay for it… I might as well check it out.

Sunday, I spent most of my waking hours helping out Meals on Wheels at their annual fundraise at Pier 48 (was Fort Mason last year) and as usual, it was a LOT of fun… and they raised nearly $2 million to help out those in need… so win-win baby. After that, I met up with a friend from SLC who was in town for a drink downtown & we caught up. Good times.

Lastly this week was "The Sitter" which is the latest from Jonah Hill where he plays a man-child who babysits some interesting children so that his single mom can go get her swerve on (yup, that's the story) and shenanigans ensue when the gives he regularly gives mouth sex to is drunk enough that she actually wants to have intercourse. That's really all you need to know about the story. It's funny at times... questionable at others... but yeah, were you expecting Adventures in Babysitting? Check it out if you'd like.

 

Birthday is mere hours away & I'll be celebrating with work (of course) then the Golden State Warriors season finale against the great & powerful San Antonio Spurs... then Friday, more work followed by karaoke jam... so yeah, good start to my 32nd year. Have a great weekend everbody!!!!