It’s difficult to believe that I’ve been living in Texas for almost three months now. Texas… f’ing Texas. It hasn’t been a shell shock and I’ve actually adapted quite quickly and quite well. No one has mistaken me for a local yet, and I am very thankful. The one benefit of living here has been the heat- you keep your weight down by constantly sweating and manage to get a glowing tan at the same time. Brilliant!

With the temperatures being constantly on and above the Celsius mark, I’m almost tempted to start using my cars air conditioner.

So much has gone on in the world since I’ve moved here and oddly enough I now feel like I’m in the hub of all that is going on.

In Oregon there was a sort of silence and disconnect of what was going on in society. My statement is my view only, but living in a population of over 6 million people, you become dizzy with the energy. At work I get to be plugged into the world while I research the past as MSNBC and other informative programs play in the background. My 40 minute commute has me listening to airwaves of the latest breaking news and my mind is excited with thoughts, opinions, theories and ideas.

I’m becoming awake and I enjoy daily getting to share this with people around me. I live in a very diverse neighborhood where white people are the minority and I must say I find it refreshing. I was worried I’d live in redneck central.

Any way, fortunately I surround myself with such a small group of people (work and home) that I’m constantly surrounded by open minded intellectuals. Hmmmm… or am I just saying ‘open minded’ because they think along the same lines as me? Perhaps ‘like minds’ would be the more proper term.

Okay, lets discuss topics that have gone viral. Casey Anthony. I believe the jury did the right thing based on what they had to work with. I listened to the drama unfold and no, they didn’t say she was innocent. Any way… It’s tragic and hopefully laws will change where it’s a federal offense if your child is missing and neglect to report it… especially a month later! Any way- I hate regurgitating what everyone else is saying.

Michele Bachmann- annoying mono-tone bitch I can’t stand.

Rick Perry- annoying psycho nut job I can’t stand.

Michele Bachmann… also a psycho nut job.

Eureka… about freaking time! I enjoyed the new episode and I’m excited to watch Felicia Day on it next week ^_^ I’ll always root her to Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I watched the last space shuttle launch :’( I thought I was soooo over that part of my life, getting excited and all. I was wrong.

Throw in some of my feelings towards the bombing in India (sad and upset and it deserves more discussion than I’m giving, but I haven’t had time to find out more about it yet), the new story on having legal interference on obese children (all for it), and my sick feeling about being currently stuck on the 700 Club as I’m writing this.

Signing off for now. Must change channel!

Current Mood: Geeky

We watch so that you don’t have to… unless it’s really good, which doesn’t happen often, but we’ll let you know when it does (like film 3Idiots!)

The Mechanic
2011 R 93 minutes
When his mentor is murdered, lone hit man Arthur Bishop (Jason Statham) trains the man’s son, Steve McKenna (Ben Foster), in the ways of the professional kill. Together Arthur and his eager apprentice hunt down those responsible for executing Steve’s father. But the partnership gives rise to new dangers and deceptions. Simon West directs and Donald Sutherland co-stars in this action-packed remake of the 1972 Charles Bronson thriller.

Cast: Jason Statham, Ben Foster, Tony Goldwyn, Donald Sutherland, Jeff Chase, Mini Anden, James Logan, Eddie J. Fernandez, John McConnell, Christa Campbell Director: Simon West

Dawn: I admit that I didn’t watch the original. In fact I completely forgot about the shared title until I read the synopsis from Netflix upon writing this review. I thought it sounded familiar, but after so many years of film viewing, all titles tend to sound alike. That being said, it almost makes my review pointless when my take on it was, “It’s nothing new”. Of course it’s nothing new, it’s a remake- and a remake starring someone who was born for these types of mindless genres, Jason Statham.

My quick feminist rant (because that’s what I do) I didn’t appreciate the only screen time any female got was merely to be dick warmer. Now that I got that out of the way, it was action packed, I enjoyed seeing Donald Sutherland on screen again and I found the concept to be interesting, along with interaction of the two leads. Ben Foster did a decent job playing a hit man in training who was trying having difficulties separating his need for vengeance from the glamorous occupation of being a cold blooded killer for hire.

If you enjoy objectifying women (briefly), explosions, chases, loud sounds coming out of small speakers and leads lacking emotion… (aka, if you’re a typical guy) then this one is for you. If you’re a die hard fan of the original flick by the same name… I’ve no clue, I guess you’ll have to watch and be the judge since I’ve never seen it.

I give it 2.5 katanas

Geoff:

Jason Statham and Ben Foster star in the retelling of the 1972 Charles Bronson movie of the same name, The Mechanic.  Since, I have not seen the original, that is as far as I’ll be going with any comparisons.

The Mechanic is an action driven story with some relationship tension bubbling just below the surface.  We follow the two main characters as master and apprentice in the art of contract killing.  This would normally be pretty boring (being that this formula has been done to death), but in this film, a past connection between the two may prove deadly.

For me the movie didn’t really begin until the apprenticeship begins.  There are enough twists and turns to hold the tension and keep you guessing right up until the end.  Just when you think you know what’s going to happen, the story takes a slight detour.  Or maybe it’s really predictable and I’m just oblivious.

Overall it’s an average shoot’em up action flick, no more misogynistic than most in the genre, but don’t expect to see any strong or positive portrayals of women in this one.  The action and fight scenes are well done and the acting is believable, though some of the dialogue is overdramatic.  It’s a decent guys film to watch alone or with your male buddies and it doesn’t need a lot of attention to follow the story.  I give it a 3 out of 5…

And election season is coming up. I’m registered. I’m fueled. I cannot be silenced. More to come.

I’m coming for you, Rick Perry.

And maybe I’ll call it: All the things I’ve said and done to Texans that really should have gotten my ass kicked. What do you think? Sketches included? Pics? I already have a few examples and so far all I’ve gotten were looks of puzzlement and confusion. I really need health insurance.

It was a great surprise to open up my fridge to find four cans of Marley’s Mellow Mood sitting there on the top shelf just waiting to be tasted. Once I popped open the first can, I realized it was too early in the evening to down it, especially if I was planning on finishing up Season 2 of Red Dwarf.

I forced myself to put a cover over the top, set it down and avoid contact until later in the evening.

Now either Marley himself was unable to wait for me try it, Mother Nature was trying to give me the ultimate experience to use with the taste/product test or it was just a matter of freakishly good timing; shortly after I set the can down a huge storm was approaching rapidly.

To the locals it may have been a ‘nothing’ kind of storm, but I’m fresh from one of the safest/mild areas in the nation (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/05/01/weekinreview/01safe.html). For me, what was to happen that evening was the perfect combination for an anti-energy drink.

I’m going to backtrack a little bit before I continue with my product review. Storms. Where I come from, when they say ‘Severe Weather’, you can expect some heavy rain (which I’ve now bumped it down to moderate rainfall), a few streaks of lightening in the distance that lasts about an hour once every year or so, and perhaps a couple rumbles of thunder that always sounds after the lightening strikes. All in all the storm is nothing to get overly concerned about despite the hype on the news. Once in a decade there will be scary winds and flooding in some areas, but you know based on your location that you will see little or no impact in your world (I’m writing about spring-fall weather).

I knew as soon as we drove into the Dallas/Ft Worth area on May 1st that it would be a slightly different experience. While turning onto one of the interstates that leads to what they refer to as the ‘Metroplex’, I saw a couple of cars pulled alongside the road. Geoff (who has been a resident here for about 20 years) scoffed, “Yes, rain freaks them out.” I laughed because it was barely sprinkling and at that moment I felt like a rain warrior. In Oregon they’d never make it ANYWHERE if they were freaking out over a few rain drops.

My laughter quickly turned into a scream as it sounded and looked like a handful of rocks were thrown at our windshield, “What the HELL?!?!” Geoff casually informed me, “Oh that’s just a little hail.” I looked at him in shock at his calm demeanor, “JUST hail? Ohhhh that’s JUST a little hail??? In Oregon when it hails, it’s like little tiny slushy pellets, kind of like packing material… this is NOT hail, those are DEATH DROPS FROM THE SKIES OF HELL!” I was quickly educated on the different sizes and types of hail in my new local area, and apparently those ‘DEATH DROPS FROM THE SKIES OF HELL’ were actually “Just a little hail.”

A few seconds later there were strikes of lightening going off on all sides of me and the grounds rumbled with thunder. This did not merely last for a few minutes or an hour… my first night in the apartment by myself was spent in the fetal position in the living room just wishing it would stop!! The thunder rumbled without strikes for hours on end and the lightening would go off without the thunder accompanying it (I was only on the floor because I wasn’t able to bring in my mattress yet, the storm was too raging and Geoff had to go back to work after being off for a week to drive me down here). Without television or wall hangings to drown out the outside noise, it was terrifying. Little did I know at the time… even THAT was nothing.

A week ago a thunderstorm came through and after driving through low lying flooded areas on my way home from work, feeling like I was driving through rushing rivers (and come to find out I was driving on bald and tread torn tires from a U-Haul mistake in hitching up my car on the tow dolly while driving over mountains etc- a story to be saved for later) it came down fast and hard and with very little warning or options for avoidance. I could barely catch my breathe from returning from my commute when the second obstacle hit. My son’s bus came to drop him off, and right as the lift dropped to the ground for his wheelchair, water rushed down the hill and soon it was coming up and over the lift, shorting out his chair which caused me to have to manually push the 300lb chair up a hill in what felt like being sprayed by a fire hose. While wheeling him just to the door, all the apartment complexes uphill that connected to mine- ran down off the roof and stairs and onto my son and me. I was walking through three separate type waterfalls just to get to the door, trying to move the portable ramp to each incline so we could make it in. The five minutes it took to get from the bus to the door had me soaked through to my underwear. It looked and felt like we were tossed into a swimming pool. My eyes stung from the water and I even had water in my ears for hours. Now THAT was a downpour.

Fast forward to Tuesday night and holding off on the Marley relaxation drink. As soon as I put it down to save it for later in the evening, a tornado warning blared through the show we were watching. Geoff calmly informed me that according to the map, the cells that contained the severe storm would go above us, and the tornadoes wouldn’t even come close to where I live (Euless). My heart started to calm down although knowing that it was El Nina time… the normal and predictable weren’t applicable this year. I quickly thought about it and added El Nina into the equation and looked on the map again… I informed him that those cells could quite easily and quickly be pushed downward… While I learned a new definition of ‘severe weather’, Geoff learned that my instinct is typically spot on. Sure enough we refreshed the maps and now it was showing we would soon be right in the middle of a couple of cells. We didn’t really need the weather map to track, all you had to do was see the constant and continuous lightening striking down all around.

Tornadoes were being spotted along my route to work and I felt a new kind of fear creep into me. I grabbed the Marley drink and downed it. I didn’t even finish off half the can before the power went out and we were left in the dark, increasingly humid apartment. The battery on my smart phone wasn’t fully charged, I had no radio, so whatever was going on out there, I’d have to know first hand.

Tornado sirens wailed in the distance, my eyes grew wider and wider- I quickly tried to find ways to get Jonathon settled and at ease in his room (since it was his bedtime at this point). Thankfully Geoff had a portable DVD player that was fully charged so I put on a movie for J and then took a gel icepack out of the freezer and placed it down next to Jonathon’s body to keep him comfortable through this ordeal. I calmly went into the living and back to my doe in headlights “ARE WE GOING TO DIE? ARE WE GOING TO DIE” look.

Hours passed and the electricity was not appearing like it would be restored any time soon. I continued to drink the Marley Mellow Mood, and all though my eyes showed fear, my heart was amazingly calm. Geoff decided to go to his place to grab a pack of cards since the humidity wasn’t putting me in a ‘let’s take advantage of this dark and stormy/scary/tornado can rip through here any moment kind of night’. Okay, maybe it wasn’t the humidity as much as the ‘a tornado can rip through here any moment.’ that killed my mood. There was a calm outside when he finally decided to go out and check on his house as it didn’t seem like there was going to be future danger.

As soon as we opened the door, thunder roared and hail fell from the sky- the DEATH DROPS FROM THE SKIES OF HELL. We stood in the doorway watching it, then watching the massive downpour- I held him inside the apartment until it calmed down, the sirens in the distance finally ceased and he then went on his way.

While he was gone, I sat in the dead silence with Marley Mellow Mood, finished off the can and then popped open the other one. No problem mon, all was fine!

The only kind he was able to find (at Spencer’s Gift Shop in the mall) was carbonated. I wasn’t a huge fan of the taste since I’m not a fan of carbonated beverages in general, but for the mellow assistance, I would say considering the circumstances, it did not let me down. I’d LOVE to try the non-carbonated ones, but I guess I’ll have to wait until I can afford to order them online (I don’t want a whole case!).

I think the timing of trying out the product was perfect and I do highly recommend it to anyone who likes carbonated fruity drinks (the flavor I had was Berry). I also had a can last night and again, it assisted me in having a relaxing evening while Geoff was working and I was making birthday gifts, which normally might cause me to be more critical and picky of my work.

If you can find it, I recommend you get it. Get another one for me too while you’re at it.

If you know me, you know I can be uppity, especially when stressed or injured, and the latter seems to be happening more frequently as the law of physics have eluded my brain. A few months ago I heard about this wonderful sounding tea called, “Marley’s Mellow Mood” which states on the website:

Marley Beverages have developed a special blend of ingredients that will calm your soul and ease your mind. Marley Mellow Mood is not an energy drink but a relaxation drink. With all the chaos around the world we feel that it is important for everyone to be able to relax, whether your stressed or wanting to mellow down, Marley Mellow Mood is your premium relaxation drink.

A concoction that I’ve been in dire need of since neither wine, melatonin nor shiny pieces of string can help me wind down after a long day and send me gently off into slumberland.

Today is the mad hunt for the beverage that has so far not come easily into my grasp. After a quick write/response with one of the representatives from the company, I have learned that you can get the drink at any Hot Topic, and that’s what I’m planning to do. With the help of my beloved, Geoffrey, he’s going to venture into the horrible gathering place of the more superficial and super annoying members of society of that is commonly known as a ‘mall’ so that I don’t have to and help me answer the question that I’m dying to know… “Does it really work, and more importantly, can it work on me?”

Stay tuned. I will also give my opinion on the long gone Red Dwarf series that is new to me.

Current Mood: Crazy!