CafeChatNoir

Last night, I got to see the Roundabout Theatre’s national tour of Twelve Angry Men, starring Mike DiSalvo. And some guy that was in The Waltons.

Mike was one of Donald’s college roommates, and so when he asked if I wanted to go with him to see the play up in Wilmington, I couldn’t say no. (For whatever reason, they went everywhere but DC it seems.)

Let me tell you, the production was absolutely fantastic. I had no idea who was cast in it, and just figured it would be Mike and 12 other people that I didn’t know, given that I’m not really up on who’s who on the stage. Wrong. Very wrong. The cast was top notch. They just did a great show, you could tell everyone was really enjoying being on stage with each other and if it hits your neck of the woods, catch it. Oh, and Richard Thomas is not aging - just a tad disturbing.

If you ever find yourself in downtown Wilmington, hit the Washington Street Ale House. Nice people, great food and beer that is about 1/3 less than it is here… We went over and had some beers with Mike after the show, got to meet some other folks in the cast (very cool) and a good time was had by all.

I haven’t seen Mike since 2001(?) - it was great to get to see him again, and my lord, he’s all grown up. I couldn’t be happier for him that he’s getting to do this work!

Normally I don’t pay much attention to Britney Spears train wreck of a life, but someone pointed out this article, and well, I just don’t know how she is surviving.

…when court papers recently revealed that the pop tart doesn’t save or invest any of her roughly $737,000 monthly income, financial and entertainment insiders weren’t surprised. …

Given that it’s Britney, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised either. It’s not the income number that is mind boggling - she had a good career there for a while, and probably gets residuals every time pictures of her running over people’s feet hit the internet.

But seriously, how on earth do you manage to spend 737K in a MONTH?? Granted, every picture shows her at Starbucks, which ain’t cheap, but I just don’t think it’s possible to have that many lattes in a month.

Britney, honey - give me 737K for a month and I’ll show you how to live on just half of it. And you’ll still be able to go to Starbucks, I promise.

I don’t know who at Entertainment Weekly had to sell their soul to Satan to get Stephen King as a regular columnist, but it was worth it.

The Great Escape

Super Bowl Ads

Personally, I think Coke had the best ones, especially the takeoff on GTA. The rest were kinda mundane considering how much money & time they put into these.

I have come to the conclusion that the way to watch the Super Bowl is to have a team you like enough to cheer for but you’re not so emotionally invested in that you’re beating your head into the bar everytime there is a stupid turnover.

Yes, I do have the rest of the series & the movie on DVD thanks to . And tonight we’re delving into the rest of it. Poor , he has to put up with my constant yapping/questions, but I don’t feel too guilty cause I know he’s seen them all before. :)

Though I will say there is something just horribly wrong with someone being tossed out the window of a pub and no glass is actually broken. Damn that futuristic technology!

OK, I will admit, I am WAY behind on pretty much ALL pop culture.

Tonight I finally saw the pilot for Firefly. (The REAL pilot, not what Fox considered to be the pilot) - Holy Crap, Batman.

Now I feel bad that I never realized it was on in real time and couldn’t do a damn thing to keep the series going.

And there is your total-geek-moment for the evening.

A Charlie Brown Christmas will be broadcast on Tuesday, November 28th, 8:00 PM EST on ABC.

Remember, watching this erases all your sins for the year.

Yeah, time to get back to reality. Finished off vacation time with a jaunt up to Adams Morgan with the Marine on Friday night - nothing quite like charging headlong back into the DC scene. He’s probably going to be deployed here soon, so no way I would pass it up.

DC drivers didn’t improve while I was gone, either.

Tons to get done this week. Gotta get back on the training wagon in a big way, get the painting scheduled on the townhouse, and a slew of other annoying miscellany that I didn’t miss one bit down at the beach.

On a completely unrelated note, I think I’d like Grey’s Anatomy more if they threw Meredith Grey out a window.

You know, had they not shown it on Armed Forces TV when we were overseas, I’d probably have never developed an appreciation for “I Spy” - still an enjoyable bit of escapist entertainment.

You know, Ann Coulter was never one of my preferred talking heads, little too much frothing at the mouth for my tastes (granted, that’s what they pay her for…)

But between what she’s put out there in the past couple weeks and her appearance on CNBC today, I am thinking she’s just a garden variety nut job that’s managed to get in front of the cameras.

OK, there is something to be said for being good and staying home when you have a race the next day. The History Channel is running a show called “How William Shatner Changed the World” and it’s all about inventions and such that were inspired by Star Trek - pretty cool.

Betty White is on the Late Late show w/ Craig Ferguson…

CF: “So, the show seemed to be very popular with the gay community” (referencing The Golden Girls)
BW: “I think they liked old broads.”

is winging his way back home after what I hope was a successful “escape from Pascagoula” weekend. If nothing else, he should have good Cinco de Mayo stories to tell. DC didn’t disappoint, two events going on when we got down there, neither had been on any list I’d looked at of things going on this weekend - that is what I love about summer here, there is always something going on.

Training doc is essentially done, just down to the formatting now…

Movie thing - not sure I really agree about some of these being in the top 100, but hey, I don’t sit around and watch movies all day, so I suppose I don’t qualify as an expert.

Television Host Louis Rukeyser Dies

I don’t even know how many of you would even recognize the name, but Louis Rukeyser hosted Wall Street Week on MPT for I don’t know how long. This was a Friday evening ritual for me & my Dad to sit and watch together for many years.

He knew his stuff, was a good interviewer, had horrific puns, and bore a bit of a passing resemblance to George Washington. I’m thinking he’s doing all the interviews with all the old school economist types he never got a chance to do before…

There seems to be a question as to whether or not hockey will be broadcast this evening due to some silly political speech.

So… Should I find myself having to watch some talking head instead of several well built gentleman pounding the crap out of each other on the ice - what is the SOTU drinking game for this year?

Oh, and as to why it is so important to watch A Charlie Brown Christmas: It’s pure good and will erase all your sins for the year. :) Some of us need all the help we can get.

8 PM, tonight, ABC - A Charlie Brown Christmas.

I’ve actually been to the movie theatre twice in less than a month. Tried to go see Walk the Line - sold out. So, saw Zorro instead. Fun escapist entertainment, and good company for the evening.

Sofa, loveseat and a variety of other crap has been removed from the townhouse. Tomorrow is packing and packing and packing some more.

Hit Murphy’s last night, ran into some Marines decked out in full dress, apparently coming back from Arlington Cemetery… We bought them a round of drinks and said thank you - they’d all done at least one Middle East tour. This lead to a discussion with my date on the fact that I feel like I’m not doing enough/the right things/whatever with my life right now. That plus conversations with this evening’s date on the general state of the universe have left me with quite a bit to think about. I know that as much as I love the job I have now, I will burn out on it eventually (and probably sooner vs later with the conditions of late), and the time has come to start at least thinking about what’s next, so yes, lots to contemplate on top of everything else.

OK, I should have gone to bed hours ago, but too much on my mind.

Peace out, kids.

…for I am the baddest motherfucker around.

So, for the USMC’s birthday, went out and saw Jarhead. Very, VERY good movie - really enjoyed it, and would definitely recommend it, especially if you’re a bit of a military freak. More fun if you have Marines to go see it with - quite fun to watch their reactions to it. Another plus to watching it with Marines, they don’t get freaked out that you know the “This is my rifle” speech and can recite it along with every other Marine in the audience. (I’ve found there is a segment of the civilian population whose reaction is to back away slowly and then run like hell.)

And a very special thank you from the bottom of my heart to all our vets today.

We’ve gotten three months worth of rain in two days, there are spots around outside where I could be lap swimming in right now…

Saw the Wallace & Gromit movie last night for little bro’s birthday - cute, mindless, perfect after a week of going full throttle. Hit Sweetwater afterwards and had some good brother/sister bonding time and good oatmeal stout.

Discovered something new this week - don’t know how I’ve never heard of it before - USMC Mud Runs. OMG, the look like SO much fun. Found one that is held mid-September each year down in Roanoke - I think I may have to do that next year to finish off the season. Was talking to my coworker about it, and we lamented the fact that we could only come up with four people in the whole company that would do something like that. His comment was something along the lines of “we’ve got a bunch of pansy-assed girly men around here”

Have directions to the wedding - it’s actually out in Manassas by the airport, still gonna be a PITA drive over w/the weather. Oh, and it’s in a tent. I can only imagine how the bride is handling things at this point.

OK, if I have to be at this shindig at 6, I suppose I’d best go get ready, shouldn’t I?

If you get BBCA, I highly recommend Footballers Wives. Makes Desperate Housewives look like junior high.

I’m trying to pinpoint where the day spiraled into a black hole of suckage, but I can’t quite nail it down - I am guessing sometime during the staff meeting though, and it went down from there. I know it’s a bad day when I start clock-watching, cause it’s rare that I do that, and today I was counting down the seconds.

Had been planning on the gym for revenge against the water (had a great weight circuit last night, followed by a complete crapassed swim), but since I am having trouble keeping my eyes open, I have decided against it.

In the weird department, got an out of the blue email from someone that I haven’t run into in probably a year. Friend of a friend, and while we always got on perfectly fine, I can’t even begin to fathom what prompted it.

Oh, to all those out there that are much more up on sci-fi things - please educate me… Serenity is based on Firefly, correct? I’ve seen the trailers and it looks kinda cool - if you’d never managed to actually see the show, would it make any sense? Nevermind, asked the same question 12 minutes ago and I have my answer now. :)

Sleep well, all.

I really do need to watch SGA more often, I do find Rodney to be absolutely adorable. , I totally understand the obsession. :-D I do totally dig the doc on it, too.

The second episode on tonight is reminding me why I like this show - completely hilarious.

Coworker asked if I was interested in being setup on a blind date today… I asked if the guide dog was cute.

Another plus to my brother moving in - more books!!!!! Started reading “Left Behind” last night, already about halfway through it. It’s a pretty good read so far.

Even if you don’t believe in the Rapture, it’s still a fascinating concept to contemplate. (Of course, given that I’m still only halfway through it, it could all actually end up being the work of space aliens, or the government, or massive doses of hallucinogens.) I’ll admit, about the first couple chapters left me a little unnerved - all the talk of trying to find people that have just disappeared, the landlines being down, but the internet still working just gave me a bit of a disturbing flashback to 9/11 trying to find people all day and the only thing still working was the internet…

But really, what if a whole slew of people just up and vanished, for whatever reason? I see the bumper stickers that say “in case of Rapture, this vehicle will be unmanned”, and all I can think is, “Great, as if there will not be *enough* to worry about, add minivans careening out of control on the parkway to the list”. (Thoughts such as those show that I would be one of the ones left to dodge minivans!) I’d like to think that if it were to come to pass, whoever is in charge of it would have the courtesy to at least get the cars off the road first…

I am looking forward to seeing how it ends. (But given that it is a series of something like 7 books, I assume there will be all sorts of loose ends.)

OK, time for bed for this chicky.

It just occurred to me, we moved here 20 years ago.  20 years, and I’m back right in the same house where I started when we got here, and frankly, feeling about the same way I did then, too, aka “WTF do I do now??”  To be honest, I can’t decide if I am surprised or disappointed at the fact that I never left the area.

I didn’t get enough sleep last night.

To the asshat in BMW turning onto my street this morning - sorry I slowed you down by actually forcing you to STOP at the stop sign you so wanted to go blowing through, but I was already in the intersection you putz.

Oh, to the client that was pissy because I repeated myself FOUR times - had you actually taken two seconds to listen the first three times, I wouldn’t have had to keep repeating it.

The coworker to my left is on the verge of a total meltdown.  I don’t even begin to know what to do about that to help her - she’s totally freaked out all the time cause she doesn’t know everything yet, and it’s hard to convince her that she’ll do better and absorb more if she just relaxes a bit, and she doesn’t have to know everything yet - but cause she’s in a panic, she’s not picking up anything at all.  She’s also locking horns with the manager, and that’s not helping.

I got home to a message from my boss asking if I would go on 10-7 the next two days due to some scheduling cockups.  At least that’s what I think the message was, the answering machine is quite the piece of junk and really needs to be replaced.   I left her a voice mail on her cell saying I’d see her at 10.

Rain…  Yep, we need it, but it hosed the drive home, which I was an hour late starting anyway.  Trying to explain to the dog that we’re not going out as I am just not tough enough for outside exercise in the rain just isn’t working. 

The lawn folks accidentally left the side gate unlatched yesterday.  Found this out when I called the dog and he came to the door in the carport - apparently he was waiting at the other gate to get back in the yard.  Oh you can bet he got TONS of praise for not running off.  I know it had to be tempting to go wandering.

Couple things on my mind I just can’t shake that are starting to get to the point of being a distraction, and I simply cannot figure out what to do about it, short of bashing myself in the head with a stapler and hoping for selective amnesia.

However, there was a bright spot to the day - I got a coupon for a Starbucks freebie cause they lost my order this morning.  Totally unnecessary, but really nice.  I cashed it in on the way home. :)

QE did a makeover on a nudist this evening.  Highly entertaining.  And I’ve found a new drink recipe I must try - rum, grapefruit juice and lime juice all thrown into a blender w/ some ice.

Someone was attacked in Rock Creek Park the other day.  Apparently police & media are saying that joggers and such should be carrying cell phone with the police number preprogrammed in.  Personally, I’m thinking brass knuckles might be slightly more useful, then call the police after you’ve bashed an attacker in the face and run the hell away.  Seriously though, yeah, it bites to have to think about this kind of crap wherever you are if you’re not in a position where you’ve got an exercise partner that sucks as badly as you do to go and workout with.  Yeah, I could just pony up the money for the gym now, but I really do like to get outside if possible to exercise.

Note to self: I’d best come up with a different activity for my 47th birthday…

OK, I think I am the last person on the planet to get around to watching Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but that was what I did this evening, and damn, those are some awesome fight scenes in it. Also a good reminder to check potential nannies to be sure that they’re not disgruntled rejects from the local martial arts school, cause then you end up with a daughter that runs off to be with a bunch of damn hippies.

Some missionary-types came by this afternoon… I simply did not answer the door. I know, it’s completely juvenile, and I do feel bad for it, but to start with, opening the door to uninvited strangers is a bad idea, and really, right now, I don’t think anyone wants to talk to me about religion and faith, cause I’m a touch short on both for a variety of reasons, and it’s not particularly fair to inflict them on others who are just trying to spread the good word and all that. (“How did it go today, dear?” “The weird lady with the animals made me cry!”)

Tasha is sending me her old wireless router - she’s pretty sure it works, and she doesn’t have any use for it anymore, so that should be here by next weekend - I think a bit o’ electronics shopping is in my future next weekend. Can anyone out there tell me - are wireless routers usually wireless *only* or are they like a regular wired router, but have wireless capability on top of everything else?

Someone is shooting off bottle rockets down the street and they’re popping up over the trees outside my window. The weekend *of* the 4th, I don’t so much mind them. It’s when kids start shooting them of 15 minutes after the stands open for business each season that I get a tad annoyed.