The Official Site for the Lackluster Goings-On of Michael Kaiser
Posts tagged james bond
Event of the Year
Mar 18th
Went to my father-in-law’s 50th birthday last weekend. It was in Lake Havasu, and normally we drive there (and by “normally” I mean the one time I’ve gone before) but this time we decided to fly cheap on Allegiant Air. Cheaper than driving? I think ultimately not. Faster than driving? Two hour delay spells not. Easier than driving? I’ll go with yes, though it’s a toss up whether being bottled up in a car or bottled up in a terminal is better, but at least you can stretch your legs in a terminal.
The party was fun. It was a James Bond theme, so everyone dressed up, and there were little gambling tables outside and I had printed a bunch of Connery movie posters that were taped up everywhere. I think Bond posters might be the coolest movie posters every made. Bond or anything painted by Drew Struzan, can’t decide which. Learned how to play craps, and won second place, which meant I came out with $20 more than I put in. I don’t know why I’m wasting so much time with the 9 to 5 when I could be out on the road making a fortune.
The next day we toured a bit of Lake Havasu and had brunch at a place called The Turtle Beach Bar. Great view of the lake and decent food. Spring Break was just getting started, so lots of kids running around in their bathing suits, but I won’t talk about that because my wife reads this journal.
On the way home we took a wrong turn and missed our flight, so ending up driving the rental all the way home. So now flying was definitely more expensive than driving, as of course our tickets were not refundable or transferable. Oh well.
The Kid was sick the last couple days. I think The Girl is going to get in trouble for missing Monday. I missed Tuesday, but the company survived, even though I hear it was touch and go for a while.
Stuffed and Other Stuff
Dec 1st
So what have I been up to?
Had to attend the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation convention to hock wares for work. Sounds pretty cool, huh? But no, not really. Fairly boring, especially when the show was slow, which it was often. Didn’t see much of San Diego either, but it seemed like an interesting town. My hotel room had an ocean side view, but also came with a train that had to blow it’s horn every time it came by my window, which was every hour or so all night long, so it was a sleepless weekend. But at least food and drink were comped, and my co-worker and I went to town the day before we had to leave, so that was fun.
Turkey Day came and went, and was great. The Girl and I hosted it this year, which is to say that she cooked and I answered the door. I think I got the better end of the deal. I did clean the place the night before, so I didn’t get out of everything, but oh well. I was worried that our place would be too small to support everyone, but it worked out. Helps when half the cast is kids, I guess. It was crowded, but in a good way. I’m glad it’s over, but it was fun. Probably a good idea that it’s only celebrated once a year. Now on to Christmas and then a wedding. Gah. I hope 2009 is super boring. I need some boring.
As if Thanksgiving wasn’t enough, my car decided to go crazy the same week. First the ignition switch got stuck in the on position, so I had to kill the engine by pulling out fuses. Took it to a shop and of course the estimate to replace the ignition switch key escalated once they found all these other very serious problems that I should definitely fix. I drive an old car, of course there are serious problems. I should have just fixed the switch, but I let them sucker me and fix everything and…it drives worse now! Dumb. And of course it’s not their fault because the problem it has now has nothing to do with what they worked on but geez the coincidence of it all. I think they wired something wrong, or jacked with it on purpose to eek more money out of me. But forget it, I’ve put in more money on the Princess Beast than she’s worth, so I think it’s time to find a steep cliff and get to pushing. I would like a Lexus LS Hybrid. Help a brother out? I should find a donate button to put on this site.
Speaking of buttons, I took the W3C compliant buttons off this site. YouTube embeds are apparently not compliant, which means this site isn’t compliant because I like embedding YouTube videos. Oh well! (Actually there’s a way to make YouTube embeds compliant, but I’m not going to deal with that hassle every time I want to post a video. No one cares if I’m compliant, do they?)
On the geek front, despite being excited about the Trek trailer, the followup commentaries and articles I’ve been reading about the context of said trailer are still leaving me ho hum. The excitement has passed and I’m back to thinking the movie will blow. Maybe I should stop reading about it and go in cold turkey, but too late for that anyway. Plus, what else am I going to browse?
Saw the new James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace last week, as well. I brushed off Good Buddy so I could see it with my dad, and then my dad saw it with my mom while I was in San Diego, so then I was going to see it with The Girl but she felt the need to prep for Thanksgiving and brushed me off, so I ended up seeing it by myself. I wanted to see it, and I’ve never really cared about going to to movies by myself. It’s not like you talk to whomever you’re with when you go see a flick anyway. (Or if you are talking with the person you’re with…I hate you.) The movie was okay, but somewhat disappointing. It didn’t really follow up on the last installment, and the pacing was weird and a lot of the plot made no sense, or didn’t seem to matter. Not a great follow up for the perfection that was Casino Royale, but then I still left the theater wanting to be a secret agent for a living, so I suppose the movie did have a Bond-ness to it. I Except You To Die! wrote a great review that pretty much sums up why the film didn’t work for me without me having to write it all out myself, which I appreciate because I am lazy. So just read that if you’re interested in what I think, but beware of spoilers.
The Kid has a 5th birthday party this weekend. Her mum and dad are worried few will show up, but here’s hoping IMO because the less kids who show, the more likely I’ll get some bounce house action!
