I prayed to the DVD gods and they answered.

July 18, 2006 is the day we all realize mankind's true potential and all go out and buy Deluxe Edition copies of the definitive Patrick Swayze film for only $14.99. Anyone who argues that Swayze was better in that dancing movie or the one with Whoopie Goldberg gets roundhouse kicked. Hard. You only think I'm joking.

Please, for the love of all that's holy, let there be a Swayze commentary track. Please. I would stab another human being if that would make it happen. Again, you only think I'm joking.


DVD gods answering prayers part 2:


Here we have a super-deluxe Criterion Collection two-disc version of Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. It comes out the day before my birthday. Coincidence? I think not. The DVD gods have looked at my credit card bill and said, "you have worshiped us well, Maki. This has not gone unnoticed."


DVD gods saying, "watch yourself, buddy..." part 3:

Then they smited me by releasing this. Dammit.

Every syndrome has a name.

This morning I woke up to my alarm going off at 7:03am, the usual for a Tuesday. However, I decided that I was going to slap the snooze bar before my crappy alarm radio station (chosen specifically because it annoys me) started blaring out of the speakers. Ever have one of those mornings where it's not even an option to get up right away? The kind where you're still in bed, somewhat awake, somewhat asleep, but you're just waiting with your hand poised over the snooze bar so you can smack it before even a microsecond of noise blares out of it? Well, that was me this morning. Usually my brain does the math (7 more minutes... 7 more minutes... 7 more minutes...) every time I smack the bar, but I didn't even bother with that this time. Hell, I didn't even look at the time.

This was a bad idea.

By the time I did bother to look at the clock, it was 8:13am. I'm supposed to be at work by 8:30am. This is a bad thing. This required me to bounce around my house like a meth addict, feeding cats in about 35 seconds, cleaning up cat vomit in about 60 seconds, shaving in approximately 75 seconds, showering in approximately 90 seconds, dressing in approximately 85 seconds, combing hair for approximately 120 seconds (bad hair day, holla!), brushing teeth for 45 seconds and busting out the back door, grabbing a breakfast bar from the pantry on the way out. I'd say less than 9 minutes for the whole shebang might be a new record. We'll see if I can top it tomorrow morning, I guess.

Of course, since I was already late I stopped at Starbucks to get my required caffeine so I could actually survive the morning. My sleep-addled state dictated that I stupidly try something new, so I order the Banana Coconut Frappuccino. For those who might be curious, don't ever order this. Ever. A man could hold a gun to my head and I'd really have to debate whether to take the bullet or take the nasty aftertaste that drink left me. Ugh. The best part is that their website says, "Like summer itself, the sunny taste of Banana Coconut will only be around for a limited time." It almost makes me want to pray for fall to come that much quicker and spare anyone else from tasting this nastiness. But I digress.

Where was I? Oh, right. Snooze bar. What I really want to know is if there's some kind of medical name for my whole "I ignore the snooze bar and completely don't care, man" thing. I'd really like it if they'd name it after me. Like Lou Gehrig's Disease or Tommy John Surgery. It could be "Maki Snooze Bar Disorder." Except mine isn't anything that requires surgery or massive amounts of medical treatment. And I don't play baseball, so I can't have a syndrome/disease/whatever named after me. I guess it just doesn't work that way. Still, dare to dream, kids. Dare to dream.

Speaking of sports and injuries and such, it looks like I'm not SuperMaki after all. I went to the orthopedic doctor yesterday, almost a full month after the MRI of my elbow was taken. This was the first available appointment. It appears orthopedic doctors are nothing, if not prompt. My appointment was at 4pm, I was told to arrive 30 minutes early. Predictably, I arrived at 3:55pm. They took me into the office at 4:35pm. From there I sat until shortly after 5pm. Good thing I left work way early to get there, huh?

The ortho finally shows up and asks me to explain how I got the injury. Making a long conversation short, he had never heard of dodgeball. Not the game, not the movie, nothing. After explaining it to him, he just kind of shrugged and gave me the same look the other doc gave me, which was, "damn, you must be pretty stupid to throw out your elbow playing a game like that, dumbass." Which I pretty much can't argue with, sadly. So I get his official diagnosis, which is lateral epicondylitis. In layman's terms, I have tennis elbow, despite not playing tennis in over a year. Strangely enough, he told me volleyball players are affected by this much more often than tennis players are. So it sounds like a completely misnamed injury. But hey, the name stuck so we've all gotta use it now. At least it's better than saying lateral epicondylitis all the time.

It won't require surgery because, well, you have to be hell of lame to need surgery for tennis elbow. And I think we all know by now that I am most certainly not hell of lame. However, I am lame enough to only be able to lift weights that I can complete no less than 3 reps of 20 using. Matty will not be pleased with this knowledge. I will also have to go on the DL as far as dodgeball is concerned. This one hurts, though I'd pretty much been avoiding that trip all season. Guess I won't be a sweaty mess at the Ale House on Wednesday nights anymore, so there's that silver lining I'd been looking for.

What I was really hoping for was some rare injury that would make me famous in medical circles, but sadly I didn't even get that. Besides, "Maki Elbow" just doesn't quite have the ring that "Tennis Elbow" does anyway. Better than "Volleyball Elbow" at least, and certainly better than "lateral epicondylitis," which sounds like the kind of name a sex therapist would give a rare oral sex maneuver. Seriously.

This is kind of a review for 'Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.'

Rent it. Now. Like, right now. Hell, go buy it.

Ok, I guess I can write a little more than that since I haven't done a movie review thing in a while. As you can predict, this review will be a positive one. But the problem I'm having is I want to talk about all the incredibly cool stuff going on in this movie, but I don't want to give away anything. So, if I seem vague, there's a reason for it. You'll thank me once you've listened to me and are sitting there watching something crazy and totally off-the-wall happening on screen and laughing your ass off at it.

Or maybe not.

You see, this is the type of movie that you're either going to love to death and act like me, wanting everyone you know to watch it like, right now, or you're going to hate it, thinking it's too snarky and trying too hard to be cool for its own good. And either reaction is valid. I guess it depends on whether razor-sharp dialogue, humor about as black as you can get and as much style and movie-rule-breaking as Fight Club are your things. If so, then I like you more already. If not, then why the hell do you read this site, anyway?

So, you may be saying to yourself, "what the hell is the movie about, anyway?" Of course, you probably said, "Maki, get to the damn point already," way before that, and I can understand why you'd say that. And I forgive you for it. But anyway, think of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang as a neo-noir. It's a murder-mystery. It's a comedy. It's a buddy movie. There's even a bit of action flick in there. It's like so many of the movies I just eat up... It doesn't fit in any one genre. But that's a good thing. It rarely settles for doing what's predictable, and when it does, it openly mocks itself for doing it. Maybe that would annoy people who don't like their movies too self-aware, but I just ate it up. What can I say, I'm a sucker for style.

All you really need to know is Robert Downey Jr. is terrific as Harry Lockhart, our narrator, a petty thief from New York who finds himself in L.A. pretending to be an actor. He learns to be a detective from Perry Van Shrike, an awesome Val Kilmer. The two of them get tangled up in a murder mystery involving Harmony Faith Lane, an aspiring actress played by Michelle Monaghan (much better here than she was in Mission Impossible 3). Other than that, the plot really doesn't matter, to be honest. It's all about getting the three of them together and just letting them throw one-liners at each other. And it works. I've already watched the damn thing three times now, and I've only owned it for three days. Trust me, watching it again rewards you plenty, considering just how much is going on in that first half hour. Especially stuff that you think means nothing, but actually means a lot. So pay attention! You'll definitely get more out of all the little things, like the fantastic intentionally cheesy titles to the Johnny Gossamer pulp books (Straighten Up And Die Right is my personal favorite) or Abraham Lincoln and Elvis' cameos (you'll understand when you see them) or the various discussions about proper grammar (again, you'll understand when you see it.)

It's just a fun movie. That's all there is to it. It's a fun movie with some of the best narration I've ever heard. If I have one complaint, it's that the second act loses a lot of the signature style that's set up in that fantastic first 30 minutes. It just kind of goes away for a while. But you know what? Fight Club did that too and I still love it. Just don't look for any deeper meaning or any big revelations about life or anything like that in this movie. It's all about the style and the dialogue. And there's sure as hell nothing wrong with that. Just rent it, buy it, borrow it from me, whatever, and enjoy some great actors on top of their game in a movie that just screams cool like Pulp Fiction and Out Of Sight and Go screamed cool when I first saw them. There are way too many lines I want to quote from this movie, but nobody would know what the hell I'm referencing, so just watch it already so I can at least use them on you guys. Dammit.

Four stars out of four, if you hadn't guessed by now. Let's give this movie new life on DVD since approximately 17 people saw it in the theater last year and we need more movies like this. At least I know I do.

Everything new is old again.

So, I have begun packing up my house in preparation for the whole sale/move thing. The problem I'm having is that I just didn't realize how much stuff I'd accumulated after living in the same place for five years. Back in school and for a few years after graduation I was moving every May, like clockwork. As anyone who's followed that schedule knows, moving time is a great time to just clean up and throw out any crap you don't need/want anymore. But when you're not moving once a year, stuff just kind of ends up getting pushed to the back of closets, thrown in the attic, piled in the garage, generally filling up space wherever it can fit. My house has become like the Blob, it just sucks up anything that gets near it. Except for the fact that it's immobile. But I digress. This is like my annual '95-'01 May moving cleanup, but just multiplied by 5 years of immobility. This is not going to end well.

So I guess having this much stuff makes me a pack rat? Well, if that's the case then I'm going to have to change since it's inevitable that whatever condo I can afford in the area I want simply will not hold the amount of stuff I already have without literally bursting open and spilling forth random clothes, DVDs, CDs, books and whatnot. Hell, I'll be lucky if couches and queen-sized beds don't start bursting out of the seams, too. Cross your fingers and hope I don't move in above you or you're in trouble. Trust me. I refuse to rent a storage unit just to fit some of this stuff, either. So away it's gotta go. I'm thinking I'll finally make good on that New Year's Mission to eBay a bunch of stuff. Lord knows, it'll be the first mission I actually keep. (Remember the 2-drink minimum one? As yesterday and well, every time I've gone out since January can attest to, that's a gigantic whoops...)

You know the other weird thing that happens when you live in the same place for too long? You lose entire years in your memory. Seriously. I tend to judge time frames by when I lived somewhere, what job I had, and how those two things related to whatever significant events happened at those times. I honestly couldn't tell you anything significant for me in 2002 or 2003. I remember Amy getting married in the summer and Mark getting married in fall '03, obviously, but I really couldn't tell you anything of significance in my life personally during those two years. Hell, I can't really tell you anything insignificant, either. Good thing I didn't have a blog back then or I'd be able to go back and read it now and go, "damn, I really wasn't doing much of anything back then, was I?" And then I'd get all bummed out that I'd wasted two years of my life not doing much except drinking and hanging out. (Hey, wait a minute...) Now that I think about it, I can tell you a couple events from then, but those belong in another post entirely. Trust me on this one. Now that I think about it, I can't even remember any CDs I loved in '03, and that's usually how I remember things like that. Strange... I guess alcohol really does kill brain cells. Who knew?

So yeah, moving. Anybody wanna loan me some cash so I can buy the condo before I sell the house? That'll make this whole process a lot easier, you know.

It wasn't that it was a BAD week or anything...

It's just that I really haven't had much to say. Fairly standard week, somewhat boring. I guess my muse packed up and left town because I'm not inspired to post anything of substance. Even if I did it wouldn't be as funny as if I sat on it and worked it into something funny later on. Trust me on this. I read a bunch of my older stuff and I really used to be a lot funnier. Definitely need to work on that. Just not when I'm in Orlando all weekend. At least there's a party with open bar (including bartender) and hopefully a bouncy tent. If I can't get drunk and jump around in the bouncy tent there will be hell to pay...

By the way, I get my MRI results this Tuesday, for anyone who was curious (all one or two of you.)

I guess I lied at the end of that Monday post. Sorry! I hope all of you can have a fantabulastic weekend in spite of this.

Monday Night

Sometimes you've just got nothing. Nothing much to say about this weekend, nothing much interesting going on, nothing profound to say. Strangely enough, this song kind of fits my Monday night mood, so here you go. Took me a while to track the MP3 down, but it was worth it.

Zero 7 - Monday Night

New Zero 7 disc comes out Tuesday. Finally. Thom Yorke solo disc, Jurassic 5's Feedback and the new DJ Shadow disc in July. Summer is looking good already. This should make up for the last Chili Peppers record being another mid-tempo adult contemporary rock album, just with 28 tracks. Hopefully.

My next post will not suck so much. Honest.

All MRI'z on me.

So, I had the MRI today. I went out last night and decided to try to throw like a madman at dodgeball so the elbow ligaments would be properly beat up when I went into the big freaky tube. Of course, it would have helped if I got to throw more than 2 or 3 times each game before I got pegged or caught out. And then all the beer I drank afterwards probably loosened the ligaments right back up again. Oh well.

As for the MRI? Talk about anti-climatic... I don't even get to find out the results until I go back to visit my good friend the doctor in a couple weeks. And pay another $30 copay. So weak. Not as weak as my shoulder today, though. In order to get my elbow properly in the big gigantic MRI tube, they had me lay on my side, with my arm outstretched up above my head. I had to keep the inside of my elbow facing up and my palm up also. No big deal, right? Well, as the assistant pushes me in she says, "okay, now you just have to keep that absolutely still until it finishes." I think, okay, that's no big deal. I'm not comfortable, but it's not painful either. Sure, my shoulders are too broad to fit in this tube and I'm hunched over but it'll only take a few minutes and I'm done, right?

Not quite.

35 minutes and countless cycles of hums, buzzes, drones and chucka-chucka-chuckas later (good thing for the earplugs they gave me) she finally slides me back out of the machine. I was thankful for that for three reasons: first, my hand had fallen completely asleep at this point; second, my shoulder felt like jello; third, I was literally going insane of boredom since all I could do was stare at the inside of the tube or close my eyes but remain awake (the random noise kind of made sure of that). I wished I had my iPod with me, but then remembered that my head was inside a giant magnet and thought better of it.

You'd be surprised at how much you contemplate your existence when forced to do nothing but sit still for half an hour inside a giant metal tube. You think of the old friends you haven't spoken to in years; you remember songs that had been forced out of your head long ago and wonder how you still know every single damn verse; you contemplate just what man's greater purpose on this earth is, whether it's to create or destroy; you wonder who the hell thought of sticking somebody inside a big metal tube and running loud magnets all around them at different speeds in order to get an image of their insides; on the same token you wonder who the hell saw a potato that had liquefied and decided to drink enough of it to get trashed, thus inventing vodka; you ponder the continued popularity of country music and NASCAR racing; you mentally add up the exact calories you've consumed so far that day; you mentally write another scene in your screenplay and then forget it all; you contemplate the blog post about all of your thoughts. In other words, you get a lot to think about when you can't do anything else but think. And if you're me, all you think about is More Junk. ™.

And then two weeks later they tell you how much physical therapy you'll need in order to fix the thing they were scanning in the first place. Fun!

In short? MRIs = not much fun. Thanks for your time.