Only Nola

Long Lost

The wonders of the internet strike again. I just spoke to an old friend, whom I haven't been in touch with for years, thanks to Classmates.com. I'm sure there are people who hated their high school years more than I did, but off the top of my head, I can't think of any. So it's a particularly large surprise that someone like me, who thinks that spontaneous amnesia regarding the years, oh, we'll say ALL of them before 1990, joined a website dedicated to keeping tabs on people who wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire 20 years ago. You think I'm exaggerating, don't you? Phhhttttt.

I've reconnected with several people through the site over the last few years. Mostly it's not been worth the effort, and one example in particular turned out to be a monumental mistake, but today it actually paid for itself. Go figure. Thanks to Classmates.com *no, I'm not getting paid for this... I WISH!* I spent an hour on the phone with the guy who was effectively joined at the hip to me in junior high and part of high school. Get your mind out of the gutter. Not joined at the hip in any sexual sense, thank you very much. Although, upon reflection, I'd have been way better off dating HIM in high school than the plethora of losers I loosely called 'dates'. We were just... well, we were like brother and sister, only without having to fight over the bathroom.

It's funny how you can speak to someone on the phone that you haven't seen in years and feel like no time has passed at all. With some people, anyway. All of a sudden, there was Greggie again *he's going to kill me for using his pet name on here, but he can get over it or kiss my shiny, white ass*, and it was like being 15 again, minus the bad 80's hair and the ten speed. I probably couldn't bike my way around the fucking BLOCK these days without suffering a heart attack. But I digress.

My high school years were eventful, to say the least, and Greggie was there for a lot of the disasters. One in particular sticks out in my mind. We were laughing about it this morning. You know, it's one of those things that's funny NOW, not so much funny THEN. It was a long story, involving a high speed car chase, a cul-de-sac, and the kindness of strangers. Trust me, you don't want to know. God, growing up in BFE... *sighs*

Greggie told me he went to the ten year high school reunion awhile back. Better him than me. I wouldn't go for all the tea in China. I've always wondered about that... exactly how much tea is IN China? Anyway. If I had to see the people who made my life such a misery and pretend I'd grown up and gotten over it all, I'd probably throw up right on their Jimmy Choo's. Hated high school. There are two experiences to be had in Russellville High School... one for rich people, and one for poor people. Two guesses as to which one I was, Einstein.

I did ask Greggie if the popular girls had all gotten fat and unattractive. That's what I'm holding out for. But that was only the ten year reunion, so they really hadn't had that much time to fully blossom out into fatland. I'm figuring I'll ask him again in a few years when it's time for the 20 year reunion. I'm holding out hope. Not that I'm BITTER or anything...

Well, wrapping up what is a fairly straight piece and not going down in the humor hall of fame, I just have to say that sometimes... SOMEtimes... finding someone that was long lost makes a lot of the bullshit worthwhile.

Hiya, Greggie :)

Going to the Dogs

I live in a townhouse. This, obviously, means that I am surrounded by neighbors in a controlled community. HOA fees... don't even get me started. Anywayyyyyyy. When living in a community of this sort, there are endless rules and regulations they put out because, well... because they CAN. I know there are perfectly good reasons for SOME of the rules and regs, but others are just intrusive and get into areas that are none of their goddamned business, as far as I'm concerned. Dealing with the former, and not even going into the latter, we've got one that's a no brainer.

The dog walk. There are a couple of areas in my community that are sectioned off for people to take their dogs to do their business when the need arises. They are, of course, supposed to bring baggies to pick up the stinky doggie doo when they're done. This is just plain common sense, right? Not so much. Many, MANY people here, who have dogs ranging from Pomeranians to Rottweilers, assume that the rule applies to everyone BUT them, and they let their dogs go and take a monster shit wherever and whenever the mood strikes. So WHAT if kids need some of the public areas to play in without worrying about being dipped in dogshit? Not their problem, now is it? Or even better... the ones that will use the dog area for piles, but will let them take a piss anywhere at all, since, in their mind, dog urine doesn't really count. Hhmmmm. Doesn't count... I can't let my son go barefoot on the grass in front of my house because these assbags won't take their mutts to the right fucking PLACE and there is ALWAYS some damned pile or wet spot out there... and it doesn't COUNT? These are obviously some stellar overachievers I'm dealing with here. Bet they sit around at night and contemplate the deep sociological ramifications of Sponge Bob.

Now, the best part isn't even the fact that these people do these things. No, no, no. The best part is how mad THEY get at YOU if you even LOOK at them while they're doing it, much less SAY anything to them. See, THEY'RE the ones doing something wrong, but somehow YOU'RE the asshole if you don't want some fresh, warm dogshit piled on your doorstep. Almost literally, in some cases. Someone explain to me how that works. More evidence of the screaming lack of personal accountability in our society. News flash for the idiots in question... you don't want me saying something, or giving you the hairy eyeball, then how about you WALK YOUR LAZY ASS TO THE DOG AREA? Gee, now THAT would be a solution, wouldn't it? But will it happen? It. Will. Not.

I was out on my balcony smoking a cigarette a few weeks ago, minding my own business, when I heard raised voices out front. I poke my nose around the stairs and see this massive black woman holding a snarling dog on a leash, screaming and cussing at Helen, my elderly downstairs neighbor who is on the HOA. *That's Home Owners Association, for those that don't know* This woman was going OFF, and I wasn't sure what to do, seeing as how this woman made like three of me and had the dog to back her up. I waited a couple of minutes, watching and reaching for my cell phone, and then she took herself off. I immediately went downstairs to check on Helen. She was fine, although a bit upset, of course. I was upset FOR her. You know what the altercation had been about? Yeah, you guessed it... the dog. This woman had walked her dog over and let it pee ON HELEN'S APARTMENT WINDOW *Helen has a garden apartment underneath my townhouse... that means her apartment is half underground... the windows in her bedroom, for example, sit literally at ground level*. Helen came outside and, not saying a word, just gave the woman a look. Now, two things to bear in mind. A) Helen's place is nowhere NEAR the dog area, so it's not like this was a close call or something, and B) I don't care if it's against the rules or NOT, you don't let your animal piss on someone's freaking windows. But, of course, this being the kind of person we're dealing with, she's not apologetic or anything. No, no, that would mean she was acquainted with such concepts as COURTESY and REMORSE. No, instead she does what I've come to expect from the lowest common denominator... she ATTACKED the person who WASN'T DOING ANYTHING WRONG. If my husband had been home, I'd have waded in while the bitch was going off on poor Helen, but home alone and dealing with someone who would drag their dog down onto Helen's private porch and scream and curse at an approximately 70 year old woman... yeah, I wasn't EVEN getting near her. This was obviously a woman with serious issues, and I don't see her being afraid to take all 100 pounds of me and turn me into a sidewalk stain. I guess I could have thrown one of my cats on her...

Is it any wonder I've turned into such a recluse? 90%, minimum, of the population has a fatal design flaw and should be recalled.

Being Blobby Brown

No, that's not a typo. Have you SEEN Bobby Brown lately? The man is in desperate need of an introduction to the joys of the salad and the AbFlex. Not that Whitney's much better off. The woman is apparently allergic to shampoo and has a disposition akin to a rabid chihuahua. To quote Chris Rock... 'I'm not sayin' he shoulda hit her... but I understand.'

The show, and I use the term loosely, follows Whitney and Bobby around constantly to catch them in their natural habitat. You know, like a National Geographic special, only with more alcohol and lots of jokes about farting and sex in front of the children. Bobby can't quite seem to understand that he's as washed up as Marilu Henner. He spends a great deal of time talking about himself in the third person, spending Whitney's money, and searching for desperate, easily impressed people he can surround himself with in order to feel like da man. Whitney spends HER time using the most fingernails-on-chalkboard baby talk imaginable on her husband, bitching about having to deal with her adoring fans, and humping her husband's leg in public. When not fondling him, she's scolding him like a retarded two year old. Not that it's not deserved, but still... rather pitiful to see.

Searching for favorite moments in this warm, feel good series is tough. I mean, do I pick the part where our devoted husband discusses the time he used his own fingers to dig in his wife's ass when she was constipated and, by all indications, unaware of a nifty little thing called a LAXATIVE? Or do we pick the part where Bobby throws a fit in the middle of Harrod's, in London, because his wife is daring to insist on taking their daughter shopping for things NOT FOR BOBBY!?! The gall of the woman! Though, really, what can top the moment when Whitney asks a camouflage clad Bobby to take her out in the woods and 'work her over'? And, lest we forget, there's Whitney, standing next to her charming husband, threatening to have her husband beat some man's ass for daring to offer her a ride on the jet ski she was admiring so much. I almost wept.

Can these two have alread smoked or snorted so much of Whitney's money away that they NEEDED to do this television disaster? Can't ol' Aunt Dionne cough up a few dollars to keep the wolves from the door in exchange for showing a little DIGNITY? I can't swear to it, but I think dignity throws Bobby and Whitney into anaphylactic shock. Not that we'd be able to tell the difference between them IN anaphylactic shock and NOT in anaphylactic shock.

I'm guilty of watching this train wreck. I admit it. But it serves two purposes. One, it validates everything I ever said about Whitney Houston, back when the entire world *except for me* was kissing her ass, and two, it allows me to see that I'm not nearly as weird as I thought I was. In fact, after watching Bobby and Whitney, I feel practically like a role model. Not THEIRS, obviously, but a role model nonetheless.

Getting Paid for Nothing

I know, I know... I've been lagging on the posting lately. Sorry about that. Life's been kind of hectic lately. For example, my oldest son was here for five weeks. He went back to Little Rock last Thursday. I've been working on kicking my remaining brain cells into gear since then. And eating brownies...

So Thursday I take Son 1 to the airport. The airport is always a festive experience, much like a pap smear or a tax audit. I especially like the part where they make us all take off our shoes and slide them through the little easy bake oven thing at the end of the conveyor belt. Okay, what EXACTLY are they having us do that for? What potentially fatal device am I hiding in my strappy sandals? But that's not what really gets me... it's the fact that *I* don't have to slide through the easy bake oven, do I? No, I walk through the little arch thing that I'm just *sure* is going to microwave my brain or something. So if walking through the arch is good enough for them to decide I'm not hiding anything like a deadly nail file or something equally insidious, then wouldn't it also scan my FUCKING SHOES? I could have god knows what stashed in places I don't even care to contemplate, but they figure that standing detector will catch it... what, is it allergic to footwear? Can it not multitask, scanning both a fully clothed human AND their shoes at the same time? Do shoes push it right over the edge, necessitating an intervention and some serious therapy? Maybe we need someone to design an arch thingy that's not so emotionally fragile.

So, back to my story. We stand in line in the pre-boarding area, since my son will get on the plane before the other people. Unaccompanied minors do that, you know. The time comes for him to go. We do the hugging and kissing thing, which I'm sure, as an 11 year old boy, he was mortified by, and he disappears down the life size laundry chute into the plane. Son 2 and I decide that since we have about half an hour, give or take, until we can leave the airport *one cannot leave the airport, if one is seeing off an unaccompanied minor, until the plane actually leaves the ground*, we'll get a bite to eat at one of the many food court type areas nearby. Our options are: some random scary looking Chinese place, a pseudo-fancy imitation pub establishment, and Wendy's. Wendy's won.

Wendy's, in general, is one of the better quality fast food restaurants. Note my use of the term 'IN GENERAL'. This does NOT apply to Wendy's, or ANY restaurant, within an airport. I have never, in my long and bizarre 35 years, witnessed quite so much ineptitude and hostility from a group of people actually getting PAID to provide SERVICE. That fact alone boggles my mind. People are getting PAID to not only do their job poorly, but to be assholes in the process. The tables were all disgusting, whether occupied or vacant. Trash littered both the floor and any available surface. Mystery fluids were randomly scattered here and there... my best guess is that some had been petrified for posterity. The food was not only, judging by the reaction of the people in front of me, often WRONG, it was delivered with the courtesy and pride in workmanship of the guy on the corner who runs out and spits on your windshield and rubs it with a dirty sock, all the while croaking at you to give him a dollar. I found it very telling of the mentality of the workers that they chose to scream things like 'burger with extra pickles' at the mass of warm bodies waiting for sustenance, rather than using, oh, say... THE NUMBER ON THE GODDAMNED TICKET. I guess it would just make too much fucking SENSE to politely say things like 'Number 46, your order is ready'. Much, *much* better to glare balefully at the customers and yell food descriptions at them. Accuracy is key.

I especially like how put out they all act when they actually have to, horror of horrors, take your order. Or get you more ketchup. Or do anything at all which takes them away from the cluster fuck of idiots gathered around the fry bin, loudly discussing their sex lives. How about I give them something fit to actually resent... like a spork in the eye.

I know these places are busy. I know it's hectic. I also know that there is NO excuse for such poorly organized, ill-tempered, and generally deplorable behavior from the staff. It doesn't take much effort to keep a place tolerably clean, busy or not. I know this. Apparently the staff at the airport restaurants does NOT. And it's not just Wendy's, by any stretch of the imagination. Nine out of ten eating establishments in any given airport look like they are staffed, and frequented, by complete and utter pigs. And it's interesting to note, by the way, that you pay MORE to eat there than you do at the same restaurants OUTSIDE the airport. Higher prices for shittier food and service... yeah, only in America.

Kill Bill

I recorded Kill Bill, both volumes, on my DVR *that's like Tivo, for those that don't know* months ago, intending to watch them in short order. Somehow, me being me, I didn't get around to it in anything resembling short order. Well, the other night, as I was curled up on the couch fuming at my husband *who was dead to the world, having fallen asleep DURING an argument, of all damned things*, I suddenly remembered that the movies were waiting for me. Sure, it was already past 11:00 at night, and watching them, back to back, meant a) a lack of sleep, and b) I'd be no fun at all to be around the next day, due to the aforementioned a). But what the hell. If I'm not happy, why should anyone else be?

First, let me say that I was fully prepared to not like the films. I'd recorded them because I like Uma Thurman, in general, and was interested to see how she did in another Tarantino movie. I had NOT recorded them out of a love of things Tarantino. Tarantino occasionally appeals to me, but overall I find his love of all things bloody and violent a bit off putting. That's just me. Not to mention there's the way he jumps a time line back and forth within a film... makes me a wee bit annoyed. Like I'd enjoy sticking a spork in his eye. But I digress. Going into the movie with certainly no high expectations, plus the warnings I'd already received from friends about the amount of gore involved, it would be hard to be disappointed.

The opening scene of Kill Bill was startling, to put it mildly. There we are, staring at a close up of Uma Thurman's battered face. Covered in blood and lacerations and all manner of ugliness, she's obviously in shock, panting for breath while her eyes dart around, unable to believe that this, whatever it is, has happened to her. It's one hell of a way to grab the viewer's attention. Now, seeing as how I've slept since I watched the movie a week or two ago, I can't sit here and map things out for you scene by scene in the order they appeared... a) I have the memory of a potato, and b) Tarantino hops around so much on timelines that if you can keep your bearings when recounting the movie, you deserve a cookie. No cookie for me. I'll just summarize the gist of it. Anyone who doesn't like it is free to try and do a better job on their own website.

Uma is out to wreak havoc on a scale heretofore known by neither man nor beast. Why, one may ask? Well, apparently, as we learn throughout the movie, she was the leader of a team of assassins. Named, in a very Tarantino fashion, the 'Deadly Viper Assassination Squad', their job is to kill... for Bill. Bill, whom we don't see in Volume 1, although we do hear him speak, had a romance with Uma Thurman's character, code named 'Black Mamba' *and whose real name we don't know until the end of Volume 2* until she disappeared. The opening scene in the movie? Well, that was what happened when Bill found poor Uma, about six months, if memory serves, after her disappearance. Bill was not a happy camper. Where had he found her? At a wedding rehearsal. HER wedding rehearsal. In her wedding dress, no less. Her MATERNITY wedding dress. Yes, Uma was heavily pregnant. With? Yes, of course... Bill's child, unbeknownst to Bill at the time. Bill was a wee bit cranky about being deserted in the first place, but to find her both pregnant and marrying another man? INCONCEIVABLE! So, being the swell kind of guy that he is, he brings in the other members of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad to turn her ass into a very messy memory. This is the kind of man you break up with via FedEx, hopefully after serious face altering plastic surgery and changing your identity to become a Llama shepherd in Peru.

So, they kill her. Or so they think. Wrong, of course. She's not dead, but she is in a coma. Don't even get me started on the coma thing. Anyway. I should remind you here that I'm telling this as an actual story, NOT as it happened in the movie. In the movie, you're jerked around from her coma to her wedding rehearsal to her driving down the road in a truck that reads 'Pussy Wagon' on the back, back to the rehearsal, then to a flashback of her ninja training or some shit... trust me, my way of telling it is more effective for review purposes. So, she comes out of the coma. How does she come out of the coma? She comes out of a coma as this utter slimebag is taking money from a redneck pervo to let him fuck her while she's comatose and no one in the hospital is around to stop him. He, the slimebag appropriately named 'Buck', is either a nurse or orderly, I suppose, and his job is to 'tend' *snorts* the comatose patients. His idea of tending is to pimp out their unconscious bodies when not making use of them himself. Well, Uma's character, known simply as 'The Bride' through most of the movie, wakes up in the middle of all this and dispatches the redneck pervo in question in a very bloody fashion. Dragging her unresponsive body across the floor using only her arms, she is trying to make her way out of the room when Buck shows up. Buck's day just gets worse after that. She's a trifle angry. Seeing as how she's now had a memory surface of the ill fated Buck standing at the foot of her bed, while she was comatose, saying 'My name is Buck, and I'm here to FUCK!', one can hardly blame her. More dragging of the unresponsive body, then on to a wheelchair. Having stolen Buck's keys, she's now must figure out which vehicle in the massive parking lot is his. Any guesses? Those of you who said 'Pussy Wagon' get one of those cookies I was talking about earlier. Just ignore the cat hair.

So now we're off and running. Well, not much running, since she's still got to make her body do what she wants it to and all, but you get the picture. She's now a woman on a mission. She wants the heads of the four members of the DVAS and she wants... yes, you guessed it, to KILL BILL. Ergo, the movie title. See how that all comes together?

I will say that a significant part of the violence in the movie is actually watchable because it's done in a such a cartoonish way. People getting an arm whacked off and the blood just geysering out while the person, who couldn't have held that much blood in them to begin with unless they were the size of Godzilla, whines and moans on the floor... FOR HALF AN HOUR. I mean, it's just so over the top and outside reality that it renders it watchable, not like Hamburger Hill or Saving Private Ryan, for God's sake. There are, of course, a few scenes that are NOT cartoonish and are not for the squeamish, but they're not prevalent. The acting is, surprisingly, top notch. I was delighted with Uma Thurman's portrayal of a person who is both the deadliest killer in the world and yet still a woman torn apart by the loss of her child. She was in a coma for four years, and when she woke up, obviously the child she had been carrying was no longer with her. The expression of her grief was such that I actually felt it with her, and I'm not the most empathetic person in the world. Lucy Liu, whom I don't usually have much use for, did an excellent job as O-ren Ishii, a.k.a. Cottonmouth, the cold blooded assassin and head of a major Asian crime syndicate who saw her parents murdered before her eyes when she was a child. Michael Madsen, playing 'Budd', a.k.a. Sidewinder, also does very well as Bill's brother, a washed up assassin who lives in squalor rather than take his brother's help or continue in the line of work he lost his taste for. Quentin makes you really want to like Michael Madsen, which is saying something, but then that's a big Tarantino thing, showing character's duality so that you are forced to like the unlikable, or hate the unhatable. It works for him. Anyway. Vivica Fox's character Vernita Green, a.k.a. Copperhead, while useful in giving us a good opening fight scene and setting up the rest of the movie, was rather... empty, really, in my opinion. They tried to make her multi-faceted by showing her at home with her daughter one minute, kung-fu fighting the next, but for me this character had little to no depth, unlike the others. Maybe I'll feel differently when I watch it a second time. *shrugs* And here's the best part... the fourth assassin is a blonde femme fatale type named Elle Driver, a.k.a. California Mountain Snake. I saw this bitch in Volume 1, and she was, in a bigger way, in Volume 2. I had NO IDEA who the actress was until I WATCHED THE CREDITS. That's fucking amazing to me. Daryl goddamned Hannah! I would NEVER have recognized her, blonde hair notwithstanding. She looks TOTALLY different, and her voice, which is usually so distinctive, didn't give her away, either. I literally rewound the movie to her final scenes and watched them REPEATEDLY searching for signs of 'Roxanne', and only found a moment or two where, if I strained an eyeball, I could find a resemblance. Remember 'Splash'? Yeah, not even close. Still blows me away. She did a terrific job with her character, making her a ballbuster who respects nothing so much as a fellow warrior. Then, last but not least, we've got Bill, a.k.a. The Snake Charmer *oy*... the Dick Clark of the Kung Fu world. Is the man EVER going to die? Anyway. He was amazing in the role, absolutely perfect. Dry and witty, wise yet callous toward human life, tender and merciless at once, he was a man of dichotomies, as were most of the characters. You embraced The Bride and her mission, while still being forced to either like, respect, or feel sympathy for certain aspects of the villains personalities/lives. Again, something I'm used to seeing with Tarantino.

Well, this was a seriously LOOOOOOOOOOOONG synopsis/review, but it's a whole lot of movie, so I'm forgiven. I enjoyed both of them thoroughly, Volumes 1 and 2, and would recommend them to both watch and own. Which is saying something, since I almost never like a movie enough to buy the damned thing. There's some really good dialogue, although I'd be forced to say that Pulp Fiction still rules in the quotable dialogue department. The acting in Kill Bill was underrated among the moviegoing elite, and I for one think that's a shame. Overall this was a cast that delivered, and delivered well.

I'll give this one five cookies.