Monday, June 30, 2008

Summertime.... and the living is easy

June has been a quiet month for us. It started off with my niece's wedding (sort of -- she's been married for a year already and so the wedding ceremony was completely superfluous, but it was fun anyway) and has kind of meandered along. I turned 44 on June 3 and it wasn't a great birthday, but I knew that going in. Every seven years since I was 16 I've had bad birthdays, and this year was it. I spent the day at home on the computer, which was fun, but what made it suck was that 1) I got my period, and 2) I had to have the car repaired to the tune of $362. On the plus side, I'm good now until I turn 51.

Despite a bang-up start to the month, we haven't done much. We've gone swimming in the lake. We've gone to see a lot of movies. We've had several barbecues. Other than that... not much.

The summer movies have been a mixed bag this year. Iron Man was awesome, as expected. It's my second favorite comic book movie ever, taking X-Men 2's spot (but not ousting Spider-Man 2 as the best comic book movie ever). Konkles of Nonya was great, thanks to acting powerhouse Peter Dinklage and a sexy hott Caspian. Speed Racer was dumb and flashy. Indiana Jones made me want to commit ritual seppuku because of the insanely stupid and unnecessary relationship with Karen Allen and the cutesy family angle. We've also seen The Happening, which has turned out to be the worst movie so far -- so bad it's good. Marky Mark has used up a huge chunk of Boogie Nights goodwill by not only being in this turdfest but also by his hilariously bad acting (to be fair, he didn't have much to work with -- the dialog was laughable). We also saw Wanted, and that was okay. Kinda dumb. Next up is Hancock and then Hellboy.

I sort of decided not to do One Local Summer this year. I had a lot of fun with it last year, but since I'm only home on the weekends I'm limited to only two nights in which to produce a local dinner. To tell you the truth, I've been feeling extraordinarily lazy (even lazier than usual) and half of the time I've been like, "Oh, let's just Five Guys it up tonight." So, unless Five Guys counts as local food, I'm afraid I have to bail on OLS this year.

This weekend is July 4th, so expect a forthcoming post in which we have an Americue, shoot off fireworks, and laugh at Fat Ringo.

Friday, June 6, 2008

Spider-Man Makes an Appearance in NYC! (Stan Lee is nowhere in sight.)

I don't know if anyone has seen this on the news, but I wanted to mention this because I saw it happen!

You all know that I work in Manhattan and I walk several blocks to and from the train station, straight down 8th Avenue. Last night as I was walking home I went past the Port Authority on 41st Street and everyone was standing around looking up at the New York Times Building across the street. I was like, What the hell is going on, and I looked up. Some dude was climbing up the thing! It was great, everyone was standing around with their cell phones, taking pictures. All the old ladies were like, "Oh! He's going to fall! I can't look." and all the dudes are like, "YEAH!" or "God, what a moron." When I got there he was at about the fourth or fifth floor. I kept walking, stopping occasionally to see how far he had gotten. By the time I got down to Herald Square (34th Street) he was nearly halfway up the building. From what I understand he made it and they arrested him.

This was the second time in one day that the building was climbed. Earlier in the day (and I don't know how I missed it, because I'm up on the 38th floor of my office building and I've got an excellent view of everything below 50th Street on the west side) the French Spider-Man climbed the building to promote awareness of global warming. He made it and was arrested. Later that same day the man I saw was climbing the building, I think in a copycat move. He didn't seem to be promoting anything in particular. Maybe he was high. I don't know.

I'm only surprised someone hasn't tried to climb the building before. It's got rungs going up the side of the building like a ladder. The thing is a big jungle gym, I don't know how anyone's resisted it until now.

Here's a link to a Yahoo article.