What I Learned Last Night At The Movies..

Finally, Sex and The City, the Movie, I admit i have been excited about this coming to the big screen, and I admit I was excited to finally see it!
I went with some people from work and the theater was pretty full. One of the girls turned to me about 5 minutes before the movies was supposed to start and said “I don’t see any men in here”. I looked around, and sure enough all I saw were a lot of ladies. So I yelled out “Are there any other men here!?!?!” Two men raised their hands… and yes… they were each with their wives.

A few minutes later to much fanfare and much anticipation, the movie began. Was Sex and the City any good? Would I, a MAN , one of only three in the theatre be able to enjoy it? YES! After all, being one of the guys amongst 496 women, cmon:)

The synopsis for Sex and the City looks something like this: “Carrie Bradshaw, successful author and everyone’s favorite fashion icon-next-door, is back, her famously sardonic wit intact and sharper than ever, as she continues to narrate her own story about sex, love and the fashion-obsessed single woman in New York City.
Sex and the City finds Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda four years after the hit HBO series ended, as our favorite femmes fashionables continue to juggle jobs, friendships and relationships while they start to navigate motherhood, marriage and Manhattan real estate… some of them may even — brace yourself — brave other boroughs outside Manhattan.”

Essentially, Carrie and Mr. Big decide to get married. The film then races through various themes of love, commitment, individuality, forgiveness, friendship, loss, loneliness… and just about every other human condition you can think of, and all this takes almost THREE HOURS! I admit, I loved the HBO series and I loved this movie too, BUT... was there a need to make it as long as Titanic? NO!

The movie was funny. It made me laugh. A lot. The humor was more “male” than I expected it to be… and a little more crude at times… I loved it. 4-5 solid laugh out loud moments… with many many more giggles. On that level, quite entertaining.

In most movies, you have characters that make their way through the story. But Sex and the City didn’t really have a story. The characters WERE the story, and in this context it really worked because of the diversity in the 4 main characters and their legitimate charm and likability other than Miranda … but most importantly because of the long tested chemistry between them all. The chemistry of that on screen friendship was palpable and carried the movie.

Although sometimes a bit forced, I found the emotional and touching scenes worked. Each of the main characters go through significant challenges emotionally in the movie (which is a weakness… but I’ll get to that in a bit) and at times it is communicated quite well.

Sex and the City is TOO LONG. The movie had a wonderful pace to it right up to about the 90 minute mark, and it felt like the movie was totally ready at that point to head into 15 minute wrap up. It would have been perfect. But instead, the movie dragged on for over another half hour before heading into that wrap up. It was at that point that the movie felt stretched out and unnecessary. A part of the reason the movie was too long was….

There was simply too much going on. For some reason the producers felt the need to give each and every one of the 4 main characters a significant story line sub-plot instead of one central story or without tying them together. 4 full stories takes screen time, each one interrupting the other and causing far to many themes to be brought into it. It’s not that any of the stories weren’t good, nor that any of the themes introduced weren’t worthy ones to be explored… but in food terms, if you’re making a soup, it doesn’t matter if you use 100 good ingredients, if you use all 100 the soup becomes a bit of a mess. You’re unable to appreciate the flavors of each one because it all becomes lost in the jumble of competing flavors. Sex and the City had too many ingredients going at the same time, and as such it hindered our ability to savor or appreciate any single one of them.

Its also funny to note that the producers felt the need to be "Politically correct" and include a very unnecessary "Sub plot" with Jennifer Hudson, great actress mind you, but was it really necessary to include this? NO, and believe me when I tell you that there were some great moments with her, but moments were not enough for the producers who felt the need to take the movie at times in an another direction! the should have just kept a few of those great moments and then, maybe the movie would not have been so long.

I did like the movie, and may even go to see it again. It was also very amusing to me being amongst almost 500 women in the theater to hear their reactions to certain scenes, oh and did I mention that almost everyone got dressed to the nines to go to see this movie...even me:)

Carrie Bradshaw Quote..

"Later that day I got to thinking about relationships. There are those that open you up to something new and exotic, those that are old and familiar, those that bring up lots of questions, those that bring you somewhere unexpected, those that bring you far from where you started, and those that bring you back. But the most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you find someone to love the you you love, well, that's just fabulous."

For The Obama Fans...

A teacher in Lafayette, Tennessee asked her 6th grade class how many of them were Obama fans.

Not really knowing what an Obama fan is, but wanting to be liked by the teacher, all the kids raised their hands except for Little Johnny.

The teacher asked Little Johnny why he has decided to be different…again.

Little Johnny said, ‘Because I’m not an Obama fan.’

The teacher asked, ‘Why aren’t you an Obama fan?’

Johnny said, ‘Because I’m a Republican.’

The teacher asked him why he’s a Republican.

Little Johnny answered, ‘Well, my Mom’s a Republican and my Dad’s a Republican, so I’m a Republican.’

Annoyed by this answer, the teacher asked, ‘If your mom was a moron and your dad was an idiot, what would that make you?’

With a big smile, Little Johnny replied, *’That would make me an Obama fan.’

Some New Life Rules

New Rule: Stop the pop-up ads for Classmates.com ! There’s a reason you don’t talk to people for 25 years. Because you don’t particularly like them! Besides, I already know what the captain of the football team is doing these days: mowing my lawn.

New Rule: Don’t eat anything that’s served to you out a window unless you’re a seagull. People were acting all shocked when a human finger was found in a bowl of Wendy’s chili. Hey, it cost less than a dollar. What did you expect it to contain? Trout? Luckily, it was only a finger! If it was a whole hand, Congress would have voted to keep it alive.

New Rule: If you need to shave and you still collect baseball cards, you’re gay. If you’re a kid, the cards are keepsakes of your idols. If you’re a grown man, they’re pictures of men.

New Rule: Ladies, leave your eyebrows alone. Here’s how much men care about your eyebrows: do you have two of them? Okay, we’re done.

New Rule: There’s no such thing as flavored water. There’s a whole aisle of this crap at the supermarket, water, but without that watery taste. Sorry, but flavored water is called a soft drink. You want flavored water? Pour some scotch over ice and let it melt. That’s your flavored water.

New Rule: The more complicated the Starbucks order, the bigger the schmuck ordering it. If you walk into a Starbucks and order a “decaf grande half-soy, half-low fat, iced vanilla, double-shot, gingerbread cappuccino, extra dry, light ice, with one Sweet-n’-Low and one NutraSweet,” ooh, you’re a huge schmuck.

New Rule: Competitive eating isn’t a sport. It’s one of the seven deadly sins. ESPN recently televised the US Open of Competitive Eating, because watching those athletes at the poker table was just too exciting. What’s next, competitive farting?

New Rule: I don’t need a bigger mega M&M. If I’m extra hungry for M&Ms, I’ll go nuts and eat two.

New Rule: No more gift registries. You know, it used to be just for weddings. Now it’s for babies and new homes and graduations from rehab. Picking up the stuff you want and having other people buy it for you isn’t gift giving, it’s looting without a disaster area.

New Rule, and this one is long overdue: No more bathroom attendants. After I zip up, some guy is offering me a towel and a mint like I just had sex with George Michael. I can’t even tell if he’s supposed to be there, or just some freak with a fetish. I don’t want to be on your web cam, dude. I just want to wash my hands.

New Rule: When I ask how old your toddler is, I don’t need to know in months. “27 Months.” “He’s two,” will do just fine. He’s not a cheese. And I didn’t care in the first place, I was just making conversation.

Memorial Day Weekend

Memorial Day weekend is here. It is meant to be a day set aside to remember those who died in military service to our country. Somehow over the years, it also came to be a day to honor all veterans (I thought thats what Veterans day is for). It also came to be a day to decorate all graves, no matter whose they are, at least around where I live. This has taken on sort of a fashion show feel for cemeteries. Memorial Day is also the traditional start of the summer vacation season. And then there’s the Indy 500. That’s all fine and good, but sometime this weekend, please stop and give a bit of remembrance and honor to those who gave the last full measure for their nation and for me and you!

Saturday Discovery In The Kitchen!

Who ever looks at the end of your aluminum foil box? What a fantastic idea. Now, if someone would just make plastic wrap that didn’t stick to itself.

I’ve been using aluminum foil for more years than I care to remember. Great stuff, but sometimes it can be a pain. You know, like when you are in the middle of doing something and you try to pull some foil out and
the roll comes out of the box. Then you have to put the roll b! ack in the box and start over. The darn roll always comes out at the wrong time.

Well, I would like to share this with you. Yesterday I went to throw out an empty Reynolds foil box and for some reason I turned it and looked at the end of the box. And written on the end it said, Press here to lock
end. Right there on the end of the box is a tab to lock the roll in place. How long has this little locking tab been there? I then looked at a generic brand of aluminum foil and it had one, too. I then looked at a box of Saran wrap and it had one too! I can’t count the number of times the Saran warp roll has jumped out when I was trying to cover something up. Anyway, thought you would wanna know, I know I know its another exciting day for Rich lol ..

Inner Peace

I am passing this on to you because it definitely worked for me and we all could use more calm in our lives.

By following the simple advice I heard on a Medical TV show, I have finally found inner peace.

A Doctor proclaimed the way to achieve inner peace is to finish all the things you have started. So I looked around my house to see things I’d started and hadn’t finished and, before leaving the house this morning, I finished off a bottle of Merlot, a bottle of shhhardonay, a bodle of Baileys, a butle of vocka, a pockage of Prunglies, tha mainder of bot Prozic and Valum scriptins, the res of the Chesescke an a box a chocolets. Yu haf no idr who gud I fel. Peas sen dis orn to dem yu fee AR in ned ov inr piss.

My New Windows

Last year I replaced all the windows in my house with those expensive double-glazed energy efficient kind, but this week I got a call from the contractor, complaining his work had been completed a year ago and I had yet to pay for them.

Boy, oh boy, did we go around and around! Now I’m not stupid. So, I proceeded to tell him just what this fast-talking sales guy had told me last year - namely, that in one year, the windows would pay for themselves.

There was silence on the other end of the line, so I just hung up.

I have not heard anything back.

Guess I won that stupid argument.

Stuff You Need To Know, Today!

• You might see Heather Mills in the next round of "Celebrity Apprentice."
• Alec Baldwin told "60 Minutes" last night that the idea of running for political office is more and more appealing.
• Comedy Central is bringing back "The Gong Show," with Dave Attell as host.
• A new survey shows that British consumers throw away more than a third of all the food they purchase.
• Liv Tyler and her husband are splitting up. They were married in 2003 and had one son.
• Britney Spears is back on "How I Met Your Mother" tonight.
• Whoopi Goldberg is going to host the 62nd annual Tony Awards on June 15th.
• So you can make your plans, the next two seasons of "Lost" will be 17 hours each.
• Oil flirted with $126 a barrel on Friday. A friend just got back from Norway, an oil-producing country, where he paid the equivalent of $9 a gallon.
• New research from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the University of California, Santa Cruz shows that popcorn, soda and candy sales represent some 40% of movie theaters' profits. Well, duh! We needed a survey for that?
• Amy Winehouse has been released from police custody Thursday following her arrest on suspicion of drug offenses.
• Mariah Carey confirms she really did get married to Nick Cannon in the Bahamas two weeks ago -- and they have the tattoos to prove it.

Things You Should Know, But Probaby Don’t…

If you’re like me, there are countless things you should know - but don’t. Don’t worry, there are people that spend their time digging up this info so we don’t have to. Make sure you know these things, I just may quiz you later!


Guess What?

1 . Money isn’t made out of paper, it’s made out of cotton.

2. The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp paper.

3. The dot over the letter i is called a “tittle”.

4. A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continuously from the bottom of the glass to the top.

5. Susan Lucci is the daughter of Phyllis Diller.

6. 40% of McDonald’s profits come from the sales of Happy Meals.

7. 315 entries in Webster’s 1996 Dictionary were misspelled.

8. The ’spot’ on 7UP comes from its inventor, who had red eyes. He was albino.

9. On average,12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents, daily.

10. Warren Beatty and Shirley MacLaine are brother and sister.

11. Chocolate affects a dog’s heart and nervous system; a few ounces will kill a small sized dog.

12. Orcas (killer whales) kill sharks by torpedoing up into the shark’s stomach from underneath, causing the shark to explode.

13. Most lipstick contains fish scales.

14. Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn’t wear pants.

15. Ketchup was sold in the 1830’s as medicine.

16. Upper and lower case letters are named ‘upper’ and ‘lower’ because in the time when all original print had to be set in individual letters, the ‘upper case’ letters were stored in the case on top of the case that stored the smaller, ‘lower case’ letters.

17. Leonardo DA Vinci could write with one hand and draw with the other at the same time … hence, multi-tasking was invented.)

18. Because metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World War II were made of wood.

19. There are no clocks in Las Vegas gambling casinos.

20. The name Wendy was made up for the book Peter Pan; there was never a recorded Wendy before!

21. There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with: orange, purple, and silver!

22. Leonardo Da Vinci invented scissors. Also, it took him 10 years to paint Mona Lisa’s lips.

23. A tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion will make it instantly go mad and sting itself to death.

24. The mask used by Michael Myers in the original “Halloween” was a Captain Kirk’s mask painted white.

25. If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19. You also have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar (good to know.)

26. By raising your legs slowly and lying on your back, you can’t sink in quicksand (and you thought this list was completely useless.)

27. The phrase “rule of thumb” is derived from an old English law,which stated that you couldn’t beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.

28. The first product Motorola started to develop was a record player for automobiles At that time, the most known player on the market was the Victrola, so they called themselves Motorola.

29. Celery has negative calories! It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with. It’s the same with apples!

30. Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying!

31. The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.

32. Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the book most often stolen from Public Libraries.

33. Astronauts are not allowed to eat beans before they go into space because passing wind in a space suit damages it.

34. George Carlin said it best about Martha Stewart . “Boy, I feel a lot safer now that she’s behind bars. O.J. Simpson and Kobe Bryant are still walking around; Osama Bin Laden too, but they take the ONE woman in America willing to cook, clean, and work in the yard, and haul her butt off to jail.”

Need $17 Thousand Bucks?

NASA is looking to pay someone $17 Thousand bucks to spend 90 days in bed doing nothing. If you are feeling this is your chance to blow off work for 90 days, do absolutely nothing and still get paid for it. Then this is the job for you.
After the first 11-15-day period, participants will spend 90 days lying in bed, (except for limited times for specific tests) with their body slightly tilted downward (head down, feet up). Every day, they will be awake for 16 hours and lights out (asleep) for 8 hours.
So really if you have some reading to catch up on or you just haven’t been able to find the time to catch up on some long overdue letter wrting then this might be the perfect situation for ya. Apparently there is some actual science behind this study. Our bodies have evolved special mechanisms to deal with the gravitational forces that act on us while we are here on Earth. Astronauts that spend extended periods of time in space under much lower gravitational forces experience problems with muscle atrophy and loss of bone density. NASA scientists use the head down ass feet up bed test to simulate these conditions.
So if you are tired of your job or just finished college and are trying to avoid the real world fill out the application and see if you can spend your summer in bed.

Things I Have Learned From My Mom

1. My mother taught me to APPRECIATE A JOB WELL DONE.
“If you’re going to kill each other, do it outside. I just finished cleaning.”

2. My mother taught me about RELIGION.
“You better pray that will come out of the carpet.”

3. My mother taught me about TIME TRAVEL.
“If you don’t straighten up, I’m going to knock you into the middle of next week!”

4. My mother taught me about LOGIC.
“Because I said so, that’s why.”

5. My mother taught me about FORESIGHT.
“Make sure you wear clean underwear, in case you’re in an accident.”

6. My mother taught me about IRONY.
“Keep crying, and I’ll give you something to cry about.”

7. My mother taught me about STAMINA.
“You’ll sit there until all that spinach is gone.”

8. My mother taught me about WEATHER.
“This room of yours looks like a tornado went through it.”

9. My mother taught me about HYPOCRISY.
“If I told you once, I’ve told you a million times. Don’t exaggerate!”

10. My mother taught me about the CIRCLE OF LIFE.
“I brought you into this world, and I can take you out.”

11. My mother taught me about BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION.
“Stop acting like your father!”

12. My mother taught me about ENVY.
“There are millions of children in this world who don’t have wonderful parents like you do.”

13. My mother taught me about ANTICIPATION.
“Just wait until we get home.”

14. My mother taught me about RECEIVING.
“You are going to get it when you get home!”

15. My mother taught me about MEDICAL SCIENCE.
“If you don’t stop crossing your eyes, they are going to freeze that way.”

16. My mother taught me about ESP.
“Put your sweater on; don’t you think I know when you’ll be cold?”

17. My mother taught me about HUMOR.
“When that lawnmower cuts off your toes, don’t come running to me.”

18. My mother taught me HOW TO BECOME AN ADULT.
“If you don’t eat your vegetables, you’ll never grow up.”

19. My mother taught me about GENETICS.
“You’re just like your father.”

20. My mother taught me about WISDOM.
“When you get to be my age, you’ll understand.

21. My mother taught me about SHARING.
” I’m going to give you a piece of my mind!”

22. My mother taught me about FEAR.
“One day you’ll have a child who’ll do the same things to you.”

Top 10 signs you’re at a bad barbecue

10. Everything on the grill has a long, thin tail.
9. To avoid burning, chicken breasts are covered in Coppertone.
8. The “cole slaw” is just mayonnaise and lawn trimmings.
7. The three-legged race is won by a three-legged guy.
6. Every couple minutes, the cook drops his pants and flips himself with the spatula.
5. Host tells you the burgers are 20% beef and 80% critter.
4. The steaks have been sitting in marinade sauce all night, and so has your Uncle Earl.
3. You have to sign a legal waiver before you eat the potato salad.
2. Things seem tense between your hosts, Frank and Kathie Lee.
1. The guests all have grill marks on their foreheads.

My Day At The US Post Office!

You know it's bad enough when you go into a supermarket and you cannot understand what the cashier is telling you, but the Post Office? I went got to the post office at 11:30am today and the line was out the door, I almost forgot about this issue I have too...why do we have a huge Post Office with 10 windows, and only 4 employees working at four windows? That bugs me! Ok, now back to the line...so I wait in this line for 25 mins only to be called up to the window by "Han", yes this was actually the name on his name tag....let me also preface by saying in no way am I prejudice AT ALL, I truly believe in equal rights for all... but when I go to a United States Of America Office, such as the Post Office, I believe that the person helping me should speak and understand English...PERFECTLY! Can you see where this is going yet? Yes, Han was a friendly person, however, I am betting when he's not working at the Post Office, he is a waiter at (insert your favorite chinese buffett here). So I tell Han I need to send this package to my mom overnight will it be delivered tomorrow for Mother's Day, he replies , "Yes, Express mail gets delivered 7 days a week", so I fill out the label and he says it's $16.25, I said OK, he says " Would you like to buy any stamps", I say yes I'll take one book of forever stamps,and also I would like to pay for my PO box, he said " Oh very good because the rates are going up on Monday", I said oh really? how much are they going up to, he says, "What", I say the PO box, He laughs and says "yes, you can pay now", I again say how much are the rates going up to, his reply... "We close at 12:30 today"... Can you see why I am getting frustrated here yet? So I ask again, how much are the PO boxes going up on Monday, his next reply, "yes we deriver express mail 7 days a week", If I wanted this not understanding crap I could have called American Express and talked to someone in New Delhi and gotten the same answers! At this point I hand him my credit card and just tell him to pay for my PO box, and teh stamps and the express mail, wait till you hear his next reply..." Oh cut off time has passed for express mail" I said WHAT? He said " Package will be derivered on Monday, unless I want to pay $12.50 extra to DERIVER, (thats what he said) tomorrow" I said, you just told me it can be delivered tomorrow, to which he laughs and says "let me talk to my supervisor".... so here I am now at his window 25 minutes already and people are laughing in the line because they can hear this entire conversation we are having, one lady says to me, and they call this America! Then the supervisor comes over and even he didn't understand what his clerk was telling him and asked me what I needed, so I explain it all to him and he informs me that we missed the cutoff time, because the clerk didnt put it in the system ontime and it can be delivered on Monday only! This was 35 minutes of my life I will never get back, and my mom won't get her mothers day present from me until the day after mothers day!

The First Post!

OK, the title of this blog says it all, it's just MY two cents. Feel free to add your two cents as well.