Weekend review
Friday night, I watched two Netflix movies I'd had since AUGUST... I felt it was about time to get them out of the way. I watched The Family Stone and Ice Harvest. What a waste of a Friday night!
The Family Stone looked sort of cute in the tv ads, but didn't do well in the theaters, and I know why. First off, Sarah Jessica Parker was playing totally against type - the anti-Carrie Bradshaw -- uptight perfectionist b*tch, and she looked decidedly uncomfortable doing it. Second, this was not nearly as funny as the ads led me to believe. It was a holiday family dramedy... Spoiler Alert- in case you planning on seeing this movie:Diane Keaton (the mom) has some kind of cancer and dies in the end, although the only thing we see is the next year's family Xmas without her. And the uptight b*tch loosens up and ends up with the shaggy flake brother (Luke Wilson), while her original boyfriend, the uptight business brother (Dermot Mulroney) ends up with HER SISTER (Claire Danes). I gave it two stars on Netflix ("Didn't Like It") - I didn't hate it. But don't make me watch it again.
So, then I thought I'd watch a John Cusack movie, those are usually pretty good, right? WRONG. Seriously. I think I watched 80% of Ice Harvest on fast-forward, and only slowed down when it looked like something interesting had just happened. I'm not even going to give you a spoiler alert, because you don't want to see this movie. You never really find out how he took the $2M, but I managed to gather that he's a mob lawyer and took the money from his boss, with the help of Billy Bob Thornton. BBT is, as usual, a rather unsavory guy. Eventually, Cusack is the only character in the movie who is still alive - in order to get the money, he has to kill BBT, his boss, and the woman he loves. Blech! I actually gave this one star ("Hated It") - which is unusual for me. Oliver Platt played Cusack's drunk best friend - I think I liked him the best.
Other than that, it was a pretty uneventful weekend. USC redeemed themselves by beating Stanford 42-0 and moved back up to 7th in the rankings. But then again, Stanford is 0-9, so if we hadn't beaten them, it would have been downright tragic. The Redskins nearly gave me a heart attack, beating the Cowboys (YEAH!) with a 47-yd FG after time had run out in the game. I hope my neighbors weren't too frightened by my screaming and yelling at the tv. ;)
and, one more random note:
I am a big fan of the coffee pod. Yes, it's a little bit more wasteful (and slightly more expensive) than making coffee in my 3-cup French press or 10-cup coffeemaker, but it's so much more convenient, and about ten times easier to clean up! Target usually sells the coffee pods -- I can use almost any variety with my little Juan Valdez machine, so that's a plus :) -- for less than the regular supermarket. They're not as good as the Gevalia Caffe pods that Jen used to get and bring into the office (YUM) but it'll do for the daily ration. I figure it costs me about 50-cents per day (I make 2 pods worth, to fill my travel cup and take to work), which is much better than $2/day at Starbucks!
Why am I telling you all this? Because somebody's now selling a machine to make your own pods! So you can use REALLY good coffee grounds and make REALLY good coffee pods. Of course, making the pod totally defeats the time-saving purpose, so that would have to be done in advance, but that's minor. [At this point I started trying to figure out what it would cost per homemade pod of coffee, but then I got off on a calculating tangent and decided to stop before it got really crazy!] You don't need to know all that. ;) But there are other home goodies and gadgets on my list long before I get to this one!
The Family Stone looked sort of cute in the tv ads, but didn't do well in the theaters, and I know why. First off, Sarah Jessica Parker was playing totally against type - the anti-Carrie Bradshaw -- uptight perfectionist b*tch, and she looked decidedly uncomfortable doing it. Second, this was not nearly as funny as the ads led me to believe. It was a holiday family dramedy... Spoiler Alert- in case you planning on seeing this movie:
So, then I thought I'd watch a John Cusack movie, those are usually pretty good, right? WRONG. Seriously. I think I watched 80% of Ice Harvest on fast-forward, and only slowed down when it looked like something interesting had just happened. I'm not even going to give you a spoiler alert, because you don't want to see this movie. You never really find out how he took the $2M, but I managed to gather that he's a mob lawyer and took the money from his boss, with the help of Billy Bob Thornton. BBT is, as usual, a rather unsavory guy. Eventually, Cusack is the only character in the movie who is still alive - in order to get the money, he has to kill BBT, his boss, and the woman he loves. Blech! I actually gave this one star ("Hated It") - which is unusual for me. Oliver Platt played Cusack's drunk best friend - I think I liked him the best.
Other than that, it was a pretty uneventful weekend. USC redeemed themselves by beating Stanford 42-0 and moved back up to 7th in the rankings. But then again, Stanford is 0-9, so if we hadn't beaten them, it would have been downright tragic. The Redskins nearly gave me a heart attack, beating the Cowboys (YEAH!) with a 47-yd FG after time had run out in the game. I hope my neighbors weren't too frightened by my screaming and yelling at the tv. ;)
and, one more random note:
I am a big fan of the coffee pod. Yes, it's a little bit more wasteful (and slightly more expensive) than making coffee in my 3-cup French press or 10-cup coffeemaker, but it's so much more convenient, and about ten times easier to clean up! Target usually sells the coffee pods -- I can use almost any variety with my little Juan Valdez machine, so that's a plus :) -- for less than the regular supermarket. They're not as good as the Gevalia Caffe pods that Jen used to get and bring into the office (YUM) but it'll do for the daily ration. I figure it costs me about 50-cents per day (I make 2 pods worth, to fill my travel cup and take to work), which is much better than $2/day at Starbucks!
Why am I telling you all this? Because somebody's now selling a machine to make your own pods! So you can use REALLY good coffee grounds and make REALLY good coffee pods. Of course, making the pod totally defeats the time-saving purpose, so that would have to be done in advance, but that's minor. [At this point I started trying to figure out what it would cost per homemade pod of coffee, but then I got off on a calculating tangent and decided to stop before it got really crazy!] You don't need to know all that. ;) But there are other home goodies and gadgets on my list long before I get to this one!
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