Update

I've clinched a win in this week's fantasy game (and w/ one player left on the field Monday night, no less), bringing the Sad Sack Slapjacks to a 5-7 record. It *should* be 6 up, since I lost a game by less than a point, but I digress . . . You know the lousy part of this is I'm playing myself right out of a berth in the Toilet Bowl. If I'm not making the playoffs, the consolation tourney is the destination of choice, but I'm not about to sabotage my team to get there.

Value Village = Score!

Found at Value Village tonight: optical USB mouse $2.50. Dress pants, new, in my size (!) $2 Suit coat, dress shirt, dress shoes for Parker: $6 1970's pictorial bio of Jimmy Carter: 50 cents 2 kids books for Lauren: a quarter each. Sweatshirt for LK: $2. OTOH, the cost of a 1/2" Mondale-Ferraro button was an outrageous $2, and I refused to pay the price. Haughty ba*tards.

Frost/Nixon and Page One

Tonight after work we watched "Frost/Nixon", a dramatization of David Frost's interviews with the 37th President. It's a great film and very compelling, and the acting was top notch. Grade: A

BTW, I think I failed to mention we recently watched the doc "Page One" about the NY Times. I get off on anything related to publishing so I enjoyed it, BUT even I have to admit it got damn boring and lost its way well before the end. Of note: I was alarmed at the scene where NBC's Brian Williams is exposed 'inventing' a hook out of whole cloth, to the professional disgust of the Times reporters. Wow. Grade: B/B-

Bruno

after work I watched 'Bruno'. I did LOL @ some bits but generally it fell well short of equaling 'Borat'. Too many scenes w/ too many people who seemed in on the joke. C/C-

A Doctor's Visit

@ the pediatrician w/ LuLu and Junie  Lis asked me to call in an appt for today and, thinking they'd be closed after the holiday, said 'sure'. Grumble grumble lol

Kids are fine, total waste of time at the doc. A cold, with a brisk hacking cough, but despite the fact that its lingered for two weeks they have no temp and no sign of any infection. Mollycoddled nonsense, it was. ;) Got home, cleaned the living room and kitchen. Kids lost the remote and earned my wrath, now I'm stuck going to work in two hours and no ability to watch tv in the meantime. 

Everything Must Go

After dinner the kids were excited to watch the Ice Age Xmas special on the TV upstairs, while Lis and I hunkered down to watch "Everything Must Go" with Wil Ferrell. It's the story of an alcoholic who loses his job and returns home to find his wife has changed the locks & left all his belongings on the front lawn. W/ nowhere to go, he takes up residence on the lawn. It's a sad, melancholy film brightened by a few smiles from Ferrell (who does a great job here). We both liked it a lot, with Lisa commenting on how it didn't gloss over the 'complexities of adult life'. Grade: A

The Turkey is in the Oven

w/ Lisa gone for the morn & me wrking 2nd, the kids & & are making a 13# turkey. Smiley helped me clean it and cut citrus & apples for the cavity, Junieput butter under the skin and rubbed olive oil on the outside, LuL salt/peppered & gawked @ the neck, and YaYa, well, she sat on the computer. She will be responsible for cking its progress.

Some of Lisa's Floral Work

Grey Gardens

This morning we watched "Grey Gardens" a film based on the life of Jackie O relatives Edith Beale and her mother, whose descent into squalor and poverty was documented in a famous documentary of the mid '70's. It's a sad but hopeful little film, bouncing back and forth from the wealth and dreams of the earlier decades to the dung filled house of later years, but never surrendering the certainty of better times ahead. Very enjoyable.

A Great Day

Nov 23rd, the day B4 Thanksgiving, and I'm sitting on my front porch reading, Junie on my lap, enjoying the sun. This weather is truly something 2b grateful for.

Tim Cusprin

I just got a big shock when I ck'd JSOnline. Tim Cuprisin, former TV columnist and a FB friend, has passed away @ 53. RIP Tim, I valued your columns.

Super 8

I eagerly rented the JJ Abrams flick "Super 8" today. The verdict? Disappointment. I loved the cast, especially the kids, and really enjoyed watching the internal conflicts between the characters. OTOH, I thought the sci-fi plot was thin and incredibly 'been there, seen that'. Sadly, the latter took up the bulk of the film, leaving the human element to waste away into a footnote. C-

MVP!

Congrats to MVP Ryan Braun!

2 quick sports notes: A) not only did I win my fantasy matchup in wk 11, I took "Biggest Blowout" for the 2nd time this season, whupping my opponent by 36.79 points. B) a lot of buzz on the 'net that Matt Kemp should've taken the NL MVP. Yeah, no, although it wouldn't have been a tragedy. True, this was a career year for the guy, but he walked away w/ a ridiculous 8 yr contract to show for it. Hmph. Readers of 2019 take note: as you read this, Matt Kemp is bagging groceries at your local A&P. He's not going to maintain this level for long.

What it Means to be a Democrat by George McGovern

In the interest of fairness, I tried reading George McGovern's new book "What it Means to be a Democrat". I made it through 19 pages. I quit not because I disagree with him (I knew I would going in) but because he came off as a nutter. It is one thing to value your party, to be proud of it, to champion its goals - quite another to put it on a pedestal and make it clear, in only a handful of pages, that It Can Do No Wrong. Honestly, it came off as creepy political porn. Yuck. Maybe I'll give it another go, just to see if the Kool Aid wears off along the way . . .

Good Luck Melanie!

X Factor tonight: Melanie Amaro has a smooth, powerful voice. I've always found her attractive, but tonight, w/ that Carribean accent and her devotion to Christ, she is 1000x yummier.

3 Films

But, courtesy of Netflix's mail service, we did have a double feature today. 1st up: 'Just Go With It', a comedy about a man who has his assistant to pose as his ex-wife to help him land a girl. The plot is ridiculous and has holes big enough to fit a truck through sideways, but oddly enough, I liked it. It was surprisingly funny, and there was a noticeable and sweet on-screen chemistry between Adam Sandler and Jennifer Anniston (whodathunkit?)

2nd course: The Queen, starring Helen Mirren. The Queen and newly elected PM Tony Blair navigate the public's perception of the monarchy in the wake of Princess Di's death. I thought it was a superb movie. I like that they don't shy away from the idea/(fact?) that Di's private persona was directly at odds with the image she manipulated in the media. I love how the film traces Blair's building indignation w/ the attacks leveled against his Queen, and his rise to defend her. A+

Oy, almost forgot a film we watched over the weekend: "Good Neighbors". Set in an apartment building in Quebec while a serial rapist/killer is on the loose, it follows 3 neighbors who hit it off but who may - or may not - each have their own dark secret. Lisa found it boring, I thought it was quirky and entertaining, if a bit light on action, plot, motive, and . . .well, a lot of things. Plus Jay Baurchel's voice gets on my nerves. C+

About the Blu-Ray player . . .

I should mention that my my brand new Sony Blu-Ray player, purchased in March, took a dump last month. No one dropped it, manhandled or otherwise harmed the thing, it just went kaput. Sony's response? They'll fix it, sight unseen, for a flat fee - of $110, $15 less than the cost of it new. FU Sony, rest assured the replacement will not come w/ your name on the box (when I can afford it). Meanwhile I can no longer stream my beloved Netflix, and have been in mourning ever since.

Thank You!

A big thank you to Lisa and the girls for coming by the Tiger den meeting and helping us put together a special gift for all the Mom's and Dad's!

Thank You!!

A big thank you to Lisa and the girls for coming by the Tiger den meeting and helping us put together a special gift for all the Mom's and Dad's!

Selfies by Junie

A Headscratcher

markers the kids linked together and posted over the office door for reasons unknown

Take Me Home Tonight

Natch, the 1st x I can watch a Packers game start to finish they struggle (but take away the win, may Carlos Harmon spend the night weeping). Last night Lis & I watched "Take me Home Tonight", a rom-com starring Topher Grace. Despite mediocre reviews, we both liked it a lot (and the soundtrack rocks!). Bonus - the bonus content on the DVD, which we rarely watched, was LOL & worth the rental cost alone.

And . . . 

thanks to Vincent Cruz and Desean Jackson's performances tonight on SNF, I've notched a win in my fantasy league (and I still have a player left on the field tomorrow night). 4 and 7 on the year. Yay me. (smirk).

Selfies of Junie

Watch Out!

whoo-ee LuLu is a pill today

Kiss Me Deadly

I just finished watching "Kiss Me Deadly" a 1955 Mike Hammer film considered a masterpiece of dark, paranoid noir. (recently released on Criterion, it was playing on PBS) True to its reputation, the characters are dark, brooding, sadistic, and lacking any moral center. Damn good film. And the ending - YIKES! 66 years later and I honestly think the last four minutes are among the most frightening you'll see. The sound effects alone gave me the willies!