Not the most successful day yesterday that I've ever had as a human being. Started out with a dream that had me shaken. I was being pursued by Vic Mackey and trying hard to hide from him. Vic Mackey is a red-eyed bull. I have two episodes of The Shield left to watch, and its at a point where Vic is after Shane Vendrell, and I've been rooting for Vic, but after that dream I'm actually sympathizing with Shane. Shane doesn't show fear on the show, but having that man after me scared the ever-loving shit out of me. And my two genius hiding places: first was my mom’s house and second was at work. That man should have been able to find me in two seconds. It was weird too because The Shield was not even close to the last thing I watched on Monday night.*
So after that, kids were out of school yesterday which means I go in 2 hours late. So I had a couple extra hours of sleep, which was good. Or it would have been a lot better if I hadn't realized it the night before and stayed up until 3:30. But what's bad about those days is that nobody is at the schools. Even though the schools are technically open, just no kids there. Office staff is SUPPOSED to be there. But they don't show. So I went out to find a school that was open that I could return a computer to, which I did. On my way back, sitting at a stop light, going zero miles per hour as the policeman put it, waiting to turn onto 95, a tractor trailer coming off of 95 doesn't turn wide enough and scrapes off part of my fender. Great. So after spending an hour in the cold with a policeman I had a few hours left of work. And since there was not actually any work to do but I was required to be there, I spent it going through about five phone numbers to find the guy I needed to get to to talk about getting compensated for what's going to be done to my car. And I didn't hear back from him until this morning. While I was in a meeting. So I spent all the rest of yesterday waiting for a call. Right after work though, I was hopeful still, because I was on my way to Best Buy to get the new Neko Case. And, son of a bitch, I couldn't find it. Wasn't in the new release section, wasn't under “Case, Neko” (where, yes, there WERE earlier Neko Case albums) in either the rock/pop section or the country. I was miffed.** Just wanted to come home and fall asleep for an hour. Which I did. Not the worst day of all-time, nobody got hurt, just an hour-by-hour pain-in-the-ass. Was that some kind of karmic payback for doing nothing but watch a LOT of television on Monday? When I probably should have been shoveling my driveway and stretch of sidewalk? Maybe. I am majorly looking forward to some UFC this weekend.
*After I watched The Shield I watched two things: The Way Of The Dragon and the first episode of the Jimmy Fallon show. I watched The Way Of The Dragon because I had read a list earlier in the day that purported to give me the top martial arts movies of all-time and it was number one. I don’t know about that choice. I am certainly no expert, but I thought it was just okay. Yes, Bruce Lee is a monster, the fastest man on Earth and it’s astounding to watch him. The movie is a mix of humor and action that you don’t really expect to get a nod as the greatest in a genre. Some of it is so downright goofy that the vote is a little hard to believe. Pretty good for the last fight between Lee and Chuck Norris though. Chuck Norris actually looked impressive. I’ve always wondered about Chuck Norris, because his moves have never seemed all that impressive. He’s always seemed kind of “do the most with the fewest moves” which might be a good motto to have but it doesn’t make for insane action scenes. He was actually pretty quick in this movie though, some of the more enjoyable action I’ve seen out of him. And, fighting Bruce Lee in the Coliseum while a kitten watches? MWAH! Beautiful. Anyway, I could watch Bruce Lee fight forever, but the pick of that movie as the best of martial arts, I thought it was a weird pick.
I watched the Jimmy Fallon show only because I read Van Morrison was going to be on there, and since the only thing I could think of that he’d be promoting was the live Astral Weeks record that just came out, I figured there was a chance he’d be performing a song from that, which got me semi-excited. Excited enough to watch. Which I did, and he did, he played “Sweet Thing.” And it was pretty good. It was pretty typical of Van nowadays, very mumbly, but still a solid performance, and all him. The Jimmy Fallon show is dreadful. I hesitate to say that, because it was the first episode, and judging anything on the first episode seems ridiculous. But I was reminded two minutes into it that yes indeed Jimmy Fallon is the same irritating prick that he was on SNL. The show seemed like he wanted it to be more about him than the guests. It was dumb. The whole thing was just dumb. One bad idea after another. One thing about Conan was, as childish as a lot of what he did was, it always seemed like he respected the show enough to be professional when it came to the guests. Jimmy Fallon just wants to be a fanboy and at the same time make it all about himself. “Let’s tell stories about ME! Here’s why I love you!” And I read a review the next day that said the only bright spot on the show was Justin Timberlake. No. Justin Timberlake was funny for a couple SNL sketches several years ago, but he’s annoying too. OH! Cuz he did impressions of John Mayer and Michael McDonald! OH MY GOD he’s a comedic genius! And I’m pretty sure that the little impression game Fallon played with DeNiro was a joke that was on SNL in that exact form when he was doing Weekend Update. Am I remembering that right? So he gets his first shot at a Late Night talk show and he’s going to use it to recycle bad jokes that already aired on national television several years ago that weren’t funny then and aren’t funny now? Applause.
**Went back today and I found it in the pop/rock section under N. N for Neko. Her first name. Obviously I was dealing with some real eggheads here.
