Workin hard for the money

Saturday and I'm at work again, hopefully for just a few hours. Jury duty two weeks ago and the holiday on Monday (yay for Presidents) have me a little behind. Plus it is so much easier to get work done when there is no string of emails and phone calls interrrupting. I find that I waste a lot of time on a daily basis because I have tasks that will take a solid 90-120 mins of work, and getting interrupted (or even just distracted) every 10 minutes doesn't help. And I'm reluctant to jump into something big when I've just got 30 mins between meetings, so I end up checking personal email and such as that never takes more than a few minutes.



Movies:

I Know Who Killed Me - did I write this up already? Lindsay Lohan... Poor Lindsay, so pretty, yet such a terrible movie (don't want to critique her entire body of work based on one crappy movie). Just a hard concept to take... Girl has finger/hand/leg fall off, and she non-chalantly states "Hospitals are for rich people," like she's eating at McDonalds instead of at Ruth's Chris. Comedic sex scene between one legged/one armed Lindsay and her male boytoy. She does have a nice bod... I really wanted to like this one. Two and a half stars.



Master and Commander - a little older, but I never got around to watching this one. Pretty good period piece, shocking that they could get by these days with a movie with no women in it (ok, there were a few female natives possibly shopping services, but that was about 30 seconds out of 140 minutes). Not sure I buy the "take the wheels off the cannon so we can fire at the mast" theory, but it was fairly engaging. And the Galapogis Islands are always fun. Three and a half stars.



Taking Lives - stinker of a crime drama; I never really liked Angelina Jolie, and even flashing her boobies in a bloody sex scene with Ethan Hawke (what have you done for me lately?) wasn't enough to save this one. Is she a "profiler"? Why does she lay down in the grave at the beginning? And what cop is going to co-sign on a foreign FBI agent breaking and entering? Stinkeroo. Two stars, mostly for the nudity.



Logan's Run - a friend of mine recommended this to me (jokingly, I think) when I turned 30, finally got around to checking it out. The 30 year old special effects remind me of Star Trek from the 60s... I think they even reused some of the same sound stages. Amusing to see Farrah Fawcett "Majors" get a high billing for about 2 minutes of screen time. But I guess it sold tickets... interesting concept (makes me want to see I Am Legend now), I've always had a soft spot for futuristic apocalypic survivalist stories (Red Dawn, anyone?). Fun with Michael York and the female companion... loved the dialogue when the get to the ice cave, soaked: "Here, we can put on these to keep warm". "We should take our clothes off first so they don't freeze to us". Not quite gratuitous boob shot (how do they sneak that in and get a PG rating? Or was that the special in Special Edition?). Four campy stars.

Stairway to Heaven

Got a little exercise this morning running stairs. Damn I feel old. And broken. A shadow of what I once was. Yet with age brings wisdom, and now I know not to eat broccoli AND easy mac (tm) the night before a race. Sometimes one dump is not enough.

Finished Black Snake Moan this morning. Surprisingly (I always forget the second r in that) it had a happy ending. Not quite literally, though you might have expected one from the description. One of Samuel Jackson's better roles in my opinion; his singing is admirable even though he probably wouldn't make it to the second round of American Idol. Three and a half stars. Amusing use of Justin Timberlake - I gain a little more respect for him with each role, as he tries hard and tries to play against type.