Boxing Day

For the past couple of months, PG&E had been working at the back of our parking lot, blocking access for the garbage trucks. The dumpsters filled up, but the recycling bins filled up faster. The furthest dumpster back is the one to recycle cardboard. If it was summer, I would have just piled my broken-down boxes next to the recycle bin, but it has been wet and soggy out there lately, so I've shoehorned all the boxes from online purchases in a nook between the livingroom and downstairs bathroom. The last two boxes did not fit there, neither the the box for the new TV.

So this afternoon as I was watching Troy State beat the crap out of Northern Ohio, I got out the box cutter and slit the tape on all the boxes, flattened them, and hauled them out to the dumpster. It looks like PG&E still has some work to do back there, but all the bins were empty, and my 50 or so boxes didn't come close to filling up the cardboard recycle one. Made a second trip for the household garbage and TV box. Aside from laundry, the box thing is my least favorite chore.

---

I slept in almost till noon, realized I had nothing to do today, so went to the cinema and saw Tron Legacy in 3D IMAX. There was a significant line, but plenty of seats.

Pocket review: worth full price. The effects are creative, varied, and very well done. The movie establishes the rules for playing in the grid without any "as you know, Bob", and you don't have to have seen the original to appreciate this long-overdue sequel. They made good use of the 3D without being obnoxious about it. Cinematography was beyond excellent, it should be an Oscar nomination. Ditto the costumes. Ditto makeup.  Script writer gets a Jr. Hacker award for the command sequence which Sam uses to try to break into Dad's system.  Note to Linux users: the system was created before the advent of the sudo comand.

Casting was superb. Jeff Bridges is amazing. Bruce Boxleitner plays the understated hacker-turned-suit to a T. Owen Best as 7-year-old Sam carried it off well despite looking nothing like the character. Garrett Hedlund is adult Sam. Olivia Wilde as Quorra keeps us guessing about to whom she is imprinted. She and all the women in the cast have startling eyes. Could be contacts or CG, but I like the effect. The only casting weirdness was Michael Sheen, who plays the part of an extravagant night club owner as if he was channeling Eric Idle's Galaxy Song in The Meaning of Life as done by David Bowie after one too many Botox treatments while under the influence of a subtle blend of controlled substances.

I confess to looking at my watch twice, once at the one hour mark, and again just before 2 hours. Not from boredom, just from curiosity.

At the start of the movie, in 2D, a note appears as if someone is typing it live, saying that some bits of the movie are in 2D on purpose, but please keep your 3D glasses on for the whole thing. I think they lied. I did not see any bits which were not in 3D. Maybe they massaged the print for IMAX.

---

Before I left for the movie, the vote in the Senate on whether to vote on DADT passed. CNN was reporting that the real vote would not take place till Monday. When I got out of the theater, the real vote had been held and passed. Now CNN is saying Obama will sign it Monday, but the Pentagon has to decide when and how to implement it. BS. As Commander In Chief, that's Obama's call, if he has the balls to make it. :-)

What respect I had for McCain was completely wiped away by his somber speech that this was a sad day for America.

---

What else can I bore you with? After the game it was too late to do laundry, so I went grocery shopping. The first two items on my Groc list were zucchini and English muffins. There was no zucchini in the store at all. The house brand English muffins were on sale for $1.49 a 6-pack, but they didn't have any on the shelves. In fact, the area where the labels were for them was filled with Thomas' mini-bagels. Same thing happened last week. They had Thomas' English muffins on sale, 12 for $3.69 ($1.85 for 6).  I like the Safeway ones more. Cooked whole crab was on sale, got one for about $6, and that was dinner along with some salad. Picked up a quart of Southern Comfort non-alcoholic egg nog instead of a too-large carton of chocolate milk. Mostly stocked up on frozen dinners. I think I'm good through New Year's.

---

After the movie I made the mistake of going to Fry's to get something a friend needs for her TV installation, found it overpriced, high-tailed it out of the store before the bad Jesus music disintegrated me.

---

Plans for tomorrow:
Laundry
Maybe another movie. On the short list are Harry Potter,  Burlesque and Red. The King's Speech doesn't need a big screen (in fact it probably would be better viewed in 4:3). Ditto The Social Network. The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest may already be on Netflix.

Weird Dream Channel

I'm in the lobby where I work, except it is not anywhere I have worked IRL. As I head for the elevator, several other employees whom I do not know get into the elevator then come right back out again and walk away, maybe to the stairs, maybe to another elevator down the hall. I get into the elevator and there are no buttons for choosing a floor. I spend about 2 minutes looking for some way to make the elevator go to the 2nd floor, but find none. The door has stayed open all this time, and I get out and walk halfway around the building to another elevator. It too has no buttons. I take the stairs.

On the second floor, I have to walk back halfway around the building to get to my office. I am in a big room with no cubicles, my IRL boss is doing something with a CRT TV in a corner by the door, I go over to my desk at the other end of the room. I am the only one in the office besides the boss. On the computer screen is a survey. It is asking about my elevator experience. Did I find the elevator voice to be friendly, hostile, warm or mechanical? Did the elevator respond correctly to my commands? It is clear they have changed the elevator to being voice-activated. Now they tell me.

My boss sets up some cushions in his corner of the room, a comfortable nest from which to watch the TV. There are screams of panic coming from it, and also some expressions of WTF. He is taking notes on his laptop. It's a feed from the elevator.

After a while, he props the TV on a bed which is on wheels, the bed is neatly made with a sky blue blanket and white pillowcases. He tapes a piece of paper over the TV screen, goes out the door as he pulls the bed with the TV to block the door. I go over to the TV and read what is on the paper. "No data access December 24 and 31".  I was planning on working those days. I move the bed away from the door and go out into the hallway.

I am at a table in the hallway, sorting some paperwork.  Four or five Asian employees whom I do not know (they may have been the ones from the elevator) sit down around the table, ignoring me, chatting away as they clutter the table with their paperwork. It gets to the point where I can't do my work because their papers are all over mine. After not getting any cooperation from them by politely asking them, I put on my THEATER VOICE and they pick up their papers and scurry away.

Short Day

Got on the 'puter at 9am just to write down the weird dream, went back to bed till 11. By noon I was making breakfast - sunny side up eggs on English muffins, sausage, salad, Crystal Lite.

Watched the Giants-Eagles game, was amused that Manning's main receiver was Manningham. And that the Eagles have a player named Avant, but he is not a guard. Good game, one-sided in favor of NY until the last quarter, when Mike Vick showed once again why he was worth taking a second chance on. Very exciting ending.

It was raining on and off all day, finally got off my butt and went to the laundromat. The place was almost empty, but one woman and her two daughters had about half the dryers filled with what looked like washing for a hotel - scores of identical towels. They were way behind getting the dryers emptied and the stuff folded. No problem, there were plenty of machines available.

Home, looked for the Raiders game, but it was blacked out. Listened to it on the radio while I hung up/put away laundry.

Dinner was artificial crab salad. I thought I had bought actual snow crab leg meat, but it was that faux stuff made from haddock. Tasted okay, but not like the real thing.

Watched the first half of the Sunday night game, switched away to TMZ at halftime, then switched back just in time to see an interception put the Patriots on top, which is when I gave up. Domino spent a lot of time sitting on the arm of the recliner, but unlike Pumpkin who is very a home there, she didn't stay long, and hopped off to curl up on the cushions on the sofa. She and Pumpkin both parked there at various times today.

 Went to bed way too late the last 2 nights, will go to bed early tonight to get back on work schedule. I'm planning on working the whole week.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Monday Night Football.
There's a 9 pm coffee meeting for some of my fellow photogs, but Coffee Society is not a good place for a meeting, especially with their tree taking up a lot of space, and it will be raining...
 

And a happy birthday across the pond

where it is already tomorrow, but hey, it's still the right day here. Hope you had a good one, smallship1.