Monday, July 28, 2008

Speaking of Bats

This is actually pretty weird, all this talk about bats and bat men, but my cat, Papi, he whose killing exploits I chronicled for a year in my aptly named Bodycount posts, snagged a bat Saturday night. That's probably his most unusual kill.

Fabulous Movie Review®


Batman Begins
So, a new Batman movie came out a few weeks ago, perhaps you've heard of it, and everybody has been raving about it. Apparently, this is the second Batman movie starring Christian Bale. Who knew? Not I, friend, not I. Well, dangit, I can't watch the new one without seeing the last one...

How, you might ask, did Batman Begins escape my movie radar? No clue. Although I've tossed around a few theories*.


  1. Generally speaking, I hate comic book movies, and with Netflix I have more flexibility with the movies I watch and don't get stuck renting something just because there's nothing else that I haven't seen. The problem with Netflix is that you can miss some movies that you might otherwise like since you don't have a giant wall of movies to stare at.
  2. Batman & Robin sucked so bad that my brain went into survival mode and completely blocked out any memory of or desire to see anything Batman related ever again.
  3. Katie Holmes. It was around this time that I made the life affirming decision to never ever watch another Tom Cruise movie for the rest of my life. Perhaps, at that time my zealotry extended to her as well. I can't remember, but it seems plausible.


Saturday night was designated Batman Begins night. I settled down with a bottle of Legend Pilsner and a big bowl of popcorn (popped on the stove, not in the microwave, and not Jiffy pop either, jackass). To say I was excited would be not far from the truth.

Ok, enough already. Here's what I thought (stolen from thesaurus.com):

Batman Begins is excellent, a-one, admirable, blue-chip, bravo, bully, capital, choice, classic, estimable, famous, fine, first rate, generous, good, great, magnificent, matchless, meritorious, nifty, outstanding, peerless, prime, select, spiffy, sterling, stupendous, super, superb, superior, superlative, terrific, top-notch, tops, transcendent, unparalleled, unrivaled, valuable, wonderful, worthy.

Gagknee's Grade: A

*It's #2, in case you wanted to know.

Has it really been almost 20 years since Michael Keaton first starred as Batman? Incredible.

Fiddler on the Shed

You know the best part about roofing? When its all done.

I don't mean that in a facetious way. Well, maybe a little bit, but mostly I mean that it's pretty simple, although a bit physically tough, and hard to screw up, and when you are done it looks really good.

I understand why traditionally roofers are the most intoxicated of our country's tradesman. It's pretty boring work, and the buzz helps kill the pain in your calves.

Front side in progress, but mostly done. Had a little help from a friend which was appreciated.



New tool for the job, roof jacks. These suckers were only 8 bucks each at Home Depot. Money well spent. The roof is an 8/12 pitch, which simply means it is hard not to slide off.



Done. Finished on Sunday in between and during torrential downpours. As long as there's no lightning nearby...



I'm not sure why that last picture looks like crap. Must be my neighbor's aura seeping onto my property. Or my son messed with the camera. You decide.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Shawshed Redemption

Not much done, I was outta town and low on money, so I installed something I already had. Windows!

Man. They look sooo small. Oh well. Perhaps they'll look better after the trim and paint is done. Besides, its just a SHED.

Back to the Pipeline

Decided to relive my drearm a couple of days ago and revisit the pipeline to see how the river has changed since March.

It's a lot different with foliage.


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The water is a lot lower too.



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Last time around I was stopped at this point by the water.



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The pipeline takes a sharp left up ahead and goes out into the river a bit. If I wasn't wearing work clothes I could have waded out there. Instead I walked through the woods.

See how the water is calm in this picture? That's because the pipeline makes a little dam of sorts. There was a homeless guy swimming in the river just out of the picture. I was afraid I had spooked him because he started to come out of the river after I took the shot. I repeated a silent prayer over and over, "Please don't let him be naked. Please don't let him be naked."



There was actually a couple of homeless people encampments in those woods. I was a little spooked. Especially after a youngish looking dude with huge dark circles under his eyes popped out from behind a tree. My "how's it goin'" was met with a cold stare. Guess he don't speak Yankee.

Cool shot (to me) of the Manchester Bridge. The lighting is harsh. I'm no professional.



And last but not least, this bridge that was burned down after they fled the city during the Civil War.

The Chicken or the Egg

This little baby made my heart flutter when I spied it during my "internet perusing while waiting for some program to load" time this morning.

http://richmond.craigslist.org/mcy/767677333.html

If I hadn't sunk all of my money into the shed I could get it, but then if I hadn't built a shed, I wouldn't have anywhere to keep it and work on it. Ah, well. Others will come, they always do.

Here's a coupla pictures in case the craigslist ad goes away. Its a 1978 Honda XL175.



Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Neighbor's Lawnmower Fetish Exposed!

I didn't get them all. There's a riding mower under a tarp and at least one other junk push mower on her patio, but I caught an earful from her the other day about trespassing on her property, and I'm afraid that I would burst into an expletive-laden rant if I ever have to speak to her again.

This is what I see outside my kitchen window. Grow lilac bushes! Grow!

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Lawnmowers in the pale moonlight. I like the purple one with the bicycle wheels.

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In the pile of junk in the driveway.

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Lawnmower hide-n-seek. Found you! Oh wait a minute...is that poison ivy? It would explain the rash I've had on my legs the past two weeks. The riding mower is under that blue tarp. She actually asked me to fix it, and I could use it, as long as I mowed her back yard too. I was considering it too, until she accused me of bringing a "whole bunch of people" onto her property. Bag.

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I call this one "Emasculated Mower".

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I'm not going to tell you why I call it that. Art is meant to be interpreted.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Fabulous Movie Reviews®

Cloverfield
Ew. The cinematography made me nauseous. Nah, I kid. Good movie, but not great. I like that it was filmed from the perspective of the characters, camcorder style. However, the cameraman was kind of a shipdit and I am glad he died. Too bad his death wasn't more dramatic like my cat tearing apart a mouse or a bird or a vole.

It was really short though (that could be good or bad based on your ideas of how long a movie should be). I wished it would have been longer, or at least that the first 30 minutes of getting-to-know-the-characters time had been used for more running-from-the-monster time.

Gagknee's Grade: B-

Semi-Pro
Jeez louise. If you know anybody who told you this movie was bad before you saw it, raise your hand.

Worse than Talladega Nights, Not even semi-funny, I laughed not once. NOT ONCE.

I'm so disappointed in you, Mr. Ferrell. It'll take more than Stranger than Fiction 2 or Elf's Revenge for me to every say you can carry a movie again.

Can't really blame the guy though. We all do this at work. Sometimes we take the easy way out. At the end of the week you're going to get paid, whether you convert some 25 year old COBOL banking software into a .NET web app or if you spent all your time downloading new extensions for FireFox. As long as your productive weeks outnumber your lazy weeks you're good, right?

This is your mulligan, Mr. Ferrell, your lazy week (er, movie). Now get back to work!

Gagknee's Grade: D

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Boogie Sheds

Trim's all done around the roof. Not relishing the idea of banging in nails upside down on a ladder, I opted to wait on doing the soffits because I ran out of nails for the framing nailer.

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I hated doing the siding on the gables. Theres some trick to it that I don't know. Anyway, I have some gaps where my angle was off. Ah, well. It will be covered by trim eventually.

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The tar paper and drip edges went up to. Just in time for some big rain storms. I just hope the tar paper doesn't come off before I get a chance to shingle.

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Drip edge is a pain too. Especially when its windy out.

Shingles, doors and windows...almost there.

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Opening Day Starter - Red Sox 1997

Fabulous Movie Review®

Walk Hard
Any movie that has full frontal male nudity should have a disclaimer right on the DVD itself under the title.

If you insist on watching this movie anyway and choose to not see some dude's junk, the scene where this occurs is pretty easy to spot and you will have plenty of time to cover your eyes.

All that being said, this movie is pretty good. I was pleasantly surprised. It is not laugh out loud funny, but the type of movie that you think back on and chuckle at some of the lines and screwy plot situations.

Was it worth being permanently scarred with the image of some random johnson? No. But luckily for you, you have me to warn you.

Gagknee's grade: C

Holy Crap!

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But before you get too excited like I did, she didn't get rid of the truck. It was towed to a mechanic to fix.