September 29, 2009

Ready to be surprised? Too bad.

Last weekend I went to see I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell.

Let's let that sink in for a moment.

Okay, so I went to a bro movie. What can you do? I was invited, thought it would be a fun, completely ridiculous movie (SPOILER ALERT! It was.) and more importantly, I would be able to laugh at all the stupid people there.

And in a crowd like the one there that night, it was soooooo easy to do (my row of friends and acquaintances excluded, OF COURSE). I mean, never before have I seen flask use so prevalent in movie theater before. I guess it's possible that last January when I saw The Reader that the guy sitting behind me had some Jack in his coffee, but it was at least a bit less obvious.

Though one time someone was smoking in a movie theater. I don't even remember the movie, THAT'S how annoying it was.

Anyway, the movie was what you'd expect. Sort of raunchy, all kinds of offensive and mostly a waste of time and money. The only thing I enjoyed about the movie was one of the main character's friends played by Jesse Bradford*. He was pretty funny, self depricating and really the only bright spot. Given the movie he was in, however, a "bright spot" really is more like a dusty reflection off a 2-year-old Mountain Dew can on the wall of your parents' basement. Sorry Jesse. Let's work better on our script selection next time, yes?

One of the mantras of the movie is What would Tucker Max do? (Tucker Max, for those of you still playing along at home is the main character played by this guy, who played a completely different douchenozzle on Gilmore Girls a few years ago). Throughout the movie, the answer to this question is usually something along the lines of "have sex with that hot girl over there" though at some point in this morphs to the completely unpredictable** "lose all your friends," then "get really wasted and get poisoned by some less hot girls" and finally "have an epiphany and save the day!"

I don't really know what the point of making this movie was. Maybe it was a chance to make all the sex jokes that were rejected from recent Judd Apatow movies. Possibly someone was just bored and wanted to test the limits of stupidity allowed, or at least tolerated, by society. A more likely answer is that all the dudes in suits at the studio wanted a different kind of sexist movie on the market. Who knows?

I happen to think that what Tucker Max would do is not make a lame movie. But then again, I've been wrong before.


*Full Disclosure: I may only have liked Jesse Bradford's character because Mr.Bradford had a guest arc on The West Wing a couple years ago. This forgives all career missteps, people.

** Jokes!

September 6, 2009

Food Poisoning? Dehydration? Karma?? The choice is YOURS!!

I meant to publish this blog post looong ago, but didn't. (See FAILURE in dictionary, and OH LOOK, my picture!) Anyway, here's the whole messy story a little bit late, and a lot more edited.
Sometimes vomiting is a great solution to your problems.

If, for example, you need to get out of going to an event or gathering you could say you're not feeling well, or that you had vomited earlier in the day and wouldn't want to spread whatever you have and then be all "Aw shucks, sickness! No awkward social situations for me until next year!"

Or! If you find you're using the "Oh, I need to wash my hair" line a bit too much (though, does anyone actually do that? Does it actually work??), you could switch it up with "I have to..." and scurry toward the bathroom.

Vomiting solves many a problem, is what I'm saying. Other times, however, it just sucks. Though I suppose "blows" might be more accurate.

In June my sister got married. I was very excited about this. I bought a kick ass dress, awesome shoes, got a haircut and flew to Virginia. I arrived and made plans with people to go into DC and play cards in the lobby and go to breakfast.

Then Friday came. And I got sick. The first time I threw up (should I have mentioned at the beginning that queasy people should not read this? Oops. Sorry about that.) it was at the beginning of a tour of a Civil War battlefield.
Yeah. We're THAT kind of family.

Anyway, suddenly I felt nauseated and ran inside to the bathroom. Enter the first happening of what shall henceforth be known as The Deed. Then, I felt...fine.

Like an idiot, I reasoned that this was as bad as it would be. I thought that I must have been dehydrated and over tired from my flight or the previous day of EPIC sightseeing.

So I went about my day, feeling just fine until an hour after lunch when The Deed happened again. I pretty much made it to the bathroom this time. Thanks garbage can! About 15 minutes later, oh Hi Deed, back again I see!

Oh, and did I mention, Deed 2.0 and 3.0 were in public? And more specifically, at a nail salon?

Well, they were.

After that, aside from royally embarrassed FOREVER, I was pretty much spent. The rest of the day I was in bed nursing a fever and some gatorade (one guess as to how THAT went). Amazingly, I was sort of okay the next day and was at the wedding and reception, THANK GOD. I lived on cheerios, the aforementioned gatorade and hope for the next 2 days. Heart healthy like you wouldn't believe. But that's another story entirely.

I feel like I should have learned something from this. Like maybe there should be background music and a Very Important Lesson to be learned and discussed, just like on Full House when Michelle learns the value of sharing or the atrocity of theft or whatever crap Danny is slinging her way. I mean really, we all know stealing is the only way to get yours.

Anyway, not to be a bad capitalist, but I just don't see it. People get sick, life happens (and clichés abound, apparently). All I can to is remember the good things, laugh off everything else and toast to the happy couple.