Movie Review: Eleven Minutes

Eleven Minutes is a documentary about Jay McCarroll, who won the first season of Project Runway, as he tries to prepare his first official New York Fashion Week show. It was really interesting. I mean, you hear a lot about Fashion Week, especially if you watch Project Runway, but you don't really know what it takes to put on a show and this was Jay's attempt to bring us into that world. It's a lot of work, especially because not only is there the fashion show, but there's the attempt to sell the items to stores after the show. This is a perfect example of why I love documentaries - they give you insight into new worlds.

New boots!

I've been unhappy with my clothes the last couple of weeks, so I want to go clothes shopping this weekend. But, one thing I did buy recently was rain boots! I realized that with all the snow we got, my snow boots weren't really that waterproof. Plus, now that I can walk to work, it seemed worthwhile to buy rain boots! Here are the ones I got at Target... Cute, right? They kind of have that rubbery smell, though. How do I get rid of that?

Snow update

I guess I never updated everyone about the snow.... So, we basically had an unbelievable 5 snow days! Friday Feb. 5th was an early dismissal of 4 hours. Monday, Feb 8th through Thursday Feb 11th were full snow days. Friday Feb 12th and Tuesday Feb 16th were 2 hour delayed arrival days. That all adds up to 5 days - although I came in on time the delayed arrival days and worked from home for many of the full snow days, so it wasn't really like a super-long vacation really.

There hasn't been measurable snowfall in ten days but that doesn't stop the streets from being a complete mess. Some sidewalks still aren't shoveled so that means pedestrians have to walk in the streets. Many streets are only one lane because there is so much snow piled up on both sides of the street that there is only a clear space for one car to get by. Some streets that are plowed have ridiculously high snowpiles on the curbs, making visibility difficult when trying to make turns. It aggravates me that there seems to have been very little effort on the part of the city, county, state (whoever is responsible) to go back and do any kind of clean-up plowing. At this point, the plows could have easily come back through and made more room available on these one-lane streets. This weekend has been helpful because it's been in the upper 40s - some of the snow is starting to melt.

At work, my Executive Director berated the entire staff at our monthly staff meeting on Tuesday afternoon. She went on about how just because the office was closed for that long, that didn't mean that everyone should do no work. And, we should have all been checking emails and voicemails remotely. She didn't want to hear anyone say anything like "swamped" or "digging out" because of their heavy workload. And, she said that this would have been a great opportunity for those of us potentially interested in teleworking to show her how much could have been done from home. She finished by suggesting that maybe we should not use our flex day for that pay period since we basically got paid for not working all those days. Well, we were all shocked by her reaction and her assumptions and the more we thought about it, we got furious. Why does she jump to the conclusion that we did absolutely nothing during the time off? And, well, really, isn't that's what is supposed to happen the office is CLOSED! Pretty much every person in our office did check their email during the week and many of us conducted teleconferences from our homes. There is obviously a big difference between telecommuting and trying to get some things done with our limited resources during a natural weather disaster. But no one said anything to her and we all just muttered to ourselves about how wrong she was. Although most of us refused to give up our flex day as she suggested - it's one small act of rebellion. I thought about it but in the end, I took my day off. After all, I pretty much got everything done that I needed to do. I'm no longer swamped in the slightest.

Book Review: Under the Banner of Heaven

Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer was our latest book club selection, although our meeting has been postponed for weeks due to the snow. This is a nonfiction book that discusses the Mormon religion, particularly fundamentalism and their beliefs in polygamy and blood atonement. Now, I've read quite a few autobiographies of women who had grown up as FLDS (Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints) and lived in plural marriage and I find the topic fascinating. And although most of these books do try to provide some historical background for their faith (even though the only reason these women have written books is because they no longer are part of that faith), none of them provide the detail that Under the Banner of Heaven provides. So, I was thankful for that, and learned about founder Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, the Mormon trek across the United States to find a place to fit in before ultimately settling in Utah. But, it also was kind of boring, as historical records can be.

All in all, I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the book. Parts were very interesting, but other parts were boring. Some parts were thorough, others were lacking. At the heart of the story, the author talked about one family who committed murders but felt absolutely just about doing so due to the concept of Blood Atonement - basically the justification of the death of sinners. And Krakauer did a good job of explaining how this theory has been carried out by Mormons throughout their history. But, I guess I feel like there were points of view that were missing. Did anyone change their mind about the faith after seeing Blood Atonement carried out? I also guess I realized that I'm definitely more fascinated about the polygamous lifestyle than I am about anything else that the FLDS believes and that wasn't what this book was about. So, while it definitely served to inform me about the Mormon beliefs, it also kind of left me with more questions than answers.

Book Review: The Book of Fred

The Book of Fred is a quirky little work of fiction that tells the story of Mary Fred, a teenager who was raised in a bizarre fundamentalist religious cult and is sent to live with a foster family when her parents are sent to jail. Mary Fred is thrust into this bizarre world and with a foster family who was pretty disconnected with each other. The family has a teenage daughter about the same age as Mary Fred, a single mom who still hasn't gotten over her divorce, and Uncle Roy, who appears to be a jobless, lazy mess-up. The writing style is unique in that all four main characters serve as narrators at different points so you get to see the story from each person's viewpoint. But, I think it works really well. In fact, the last section repeats someone's point-of-view and I found myself wishing that things were wrapped up from everyone's point-of-view. Anyway, the story isn't particularly unique - how Mary Fred changes these person's lives and how they in turn change hers - but the writing style is unique enough and interesting to make this a pretty good read.

Movie Review: Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

One benefit of being snowed in was that I've been able to watch some movies - although not as many as I would have liked since the post office is behind and so too are my Netflix arrivals. But yesterday I was able to watch Beyond a Reasonable Doubt , and I thought it was pretty good. It features Michael Douglas as a reportedly corrupt district attorney, Amber Tamblyn as another lawyer in the district attorney's office and Jesse Metcalfe (the gardener from the early seasons of Desperate Housewives) as a budding broadcast journalist looking for a big break and hoping to break the story of the corruption. To do so, he decides to frame himself for a murder with only circumstantial evidence and show how the district attorney convicts him with fabricated DNA evidence. Interesting plotline and interesting execution, too, with some twists and turns and surprises. I'd recommend it and I'm also thinking of tracking down and watching the original (it's based on a film from 1956).

Snow Day, Day Three

I guess it's actually Day 3 1/2 since we were dismissed 4 hours early on Friday. Today, though, is one of those blizzardy days with high winds, lots of snow, whiteout conditions, and freezing cold temperatures so I get why today is a day off. The previous few days just had a lot of snow that fell over a relatively short period of time, but the temperatures weren't particularly low nor were the winds particularly high. This city just doesn't know how to clean up after such a large snowfall.

I never thought I'd say this but I'm kind of bored. I've probably worked from home about 8-10 hours over the last few days - there's only so much I can do out of the office. But otherwise, I don't really have a whole lot of accomplishments to list after my five-day weekend. I'm curious to see if we have work tomorrow. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if we didn't. It all depends on how quickly they can clean things up and I'm guessing the high winds make that somewhat difficult.

Still Snowed In

Yep, we in DC are still trapped by the snow that fell over the weekend. We had a snow day today and will have another tomorrow. Yay! Can't complain about that. All of the roads around me are really not plowed at all. They are all side streets and therefore low priority, I guess, but it's insane to me to think that the snow stopped more than 50 hours ago and a snowplow hasn't even made it down my street or the neighboring streets. Sure, most of the busier roads near me are completely clear but why haven't all the streets been cleared yet? Not only that, but the above-ground subway stops remain closed and 99% of the bus routes are not working. I guess I just expect a lot because I come from the Worst Winter Weather City in America.

Snowed in

DC has been hit by another huge snowstorm, just about 6 weeks after the last one. 20-25 inches was the norm around town with this storm, which started Friday afternoon and basically continued for nearly 24 hours. It's stopped now so we are in clean-up mode. I kind of hope they don't get it cleaned up too quickly so we'll have another snow day at work. They let us leave early on Friday as a precaution.

My car is completely covered in snow, as you can tell in the picture on the left. Well, actually, you can't tell which is mine. My car is directly in the middle of the picture. You can see the antenna poking through the snow.

The whole thing is crazy. The city comes to a complete standstill. Well, that is true even with like 8 inches of snow, so you can imagine what happens with 3 times that amount. My street hasn't even been plowed once, which makes no sense to me. I mean, it's not a super busy street but you would think it would have been done once or twice in the midst of the storm rather than trying to get the plow down here to clear 20 inches of snow away at once. My parking lot was plowed a couple of times and appears to be passable, should I decide I want to clear off my car at some point. The sidewalk from my building to the street's sidewalk was cleared a little by my neighbor. I swear she was using a spatula. It was something tiny and it took her forever.

"Consider these teams officially tortured"

You know any article with a headline like that is going to feature Cleveland prominently. Bill Simmons, aka The Sports Guy, from ESPN.com ranks the top 15 most tortured teams in professional sports and wouldn't you know all three of Cleveland's professional teams are on the list, at the No. 10, No. 5, and No. 4 spots. I'll let you guess which team is where, although I'm sure it's kind of a no-brainer. There's probably a valid argument for switching No 5 and No. 4, though. Anyway, I guess at least we continue to win in these types of rankings. Yay us.

Wide awake and philosophical

I'm actually really tired but when I lay down, I can't sleep. My mind is so full of all these projects I'm doing at work... I guess they call that stress. So, I pulled out my laptop and spent nearly an hour wandering the Internet aimlessly, half-heartedly googling old boyfriends and crushes and reading celebrity Twitter feeds. Maybe I should start tweeting? I've debated about it for a long time but since I haven't started yet, I guess that really is my answer, isn't it? I could maybe start by logging in to Facebook more than once a month and updating my status more than once a year. Yes, maybe I should make that a 2010 resolution.

As much as I'm enjoying my new solo living situation, it's turned me into quite a lazy person. I need to change that. There's nothing wrong with calming down my schedule and not being out four nights a week but I shouldn't exchange that for sitting on my couch staring blankly at the television for hours, like I did yesterday and today. Well, last night I actually ran some errands and didn't get home until nearly 9pm, so really it was just today I was uber lazy. And I did go out three nights last week. And the week before that, I spent most of my time after work back at the old place cleaning it. And this Thursday is our next librarian Happy Hour. Come to think of it, maybe I'm not as lazy as I feel. Regardless, I do have a bunch of projects to do around the house that I should perhaps work on while I'm sitting on my couch watching television. And one of those projects is to get the slipcover back on that couch. Ha.

Book review: Open

Open is the autobiography of tennis great Andre Agassi. I'm not sure what my opinion was of Andre when he was in his prime (probably apathy), but after reading his book, I can't stand him. All he does for 90% of the book is whine. He hates tennis. He must tell you 8000 times in his book how much he hates tennis. Okay, I get that at first - his dad pushed him way too hard to basically follow his own dreams, regardless of what Andre wanted. But okay, by age 18, Andre was an adult and had probably a million dollars (or at least way more than a typical teenager with a high school diploma, which Andre does not) so if you hate tennis so much, find something else to do. Or, for the next 18 years while you remained a professional tennis player, you could have gotten out at any time. No one wants to hear your sob story when the biggest problem in your blessed life was your overbearing dad. I just feel like Andre has spent a lot of his life feeling sorry for himself and not making any real effort to change. Well-written but a totally unsympathetic autobiography.

Moved!

It's been just over a week but I didn't get my Internet connection working until today so this is the first time I've been able to officially announce that my move was successful! Yay!

This was the first time I used movers and while it was more money than I wanted to spend, it wasn't all that much more than renting a truck and bribing some friends to help. Plus it went really smoothly. Well, except for the movers temporarily putting the elevator at my old place out of service. That had me worried, since all that was left in the apartment was the big stuff. But it was only temporarily out of service, like 5 minutes. The other worry was that I had paid for the movers for three hours and desperately did not want them to take any longer than that. It took them about 90-100 minutes to load the truck. So I was worried. Luckily, it only took about half that to unload it.

Last week, I spent time trying to unpack and organize the new place while simultaneously trying to get everything out of the old place and get it cleaned. The latter item took much, much longer than I planned, but I'm confident that I should get my entire security deposit back. The former item is a work in progress, of course. I do have just about everything unpacked, but I can't guarantee that everything is in its final resting place. I'm still trying to figure out where the best place to put everything is. Of course that will take time.

In the meantime, I am so psyched about my new place and especially the prospect of having a place all to myself. It's so, so, so fantastic; I don't know why I was waiting so long to ditch the roommate.

I Want One: Cash Cab Trivia

Who doesn't want to go on Cash Cab? All two times I've been in New York City, I hoped to get picked up by the Cash Cab - and one of those times I didn't even take a cab! Anyway, this is the next best thing: Cash Cab Trivia. How fun! (via)

Book review: The Lost Symbol

I'm going to try to write more book and movie reviews in 2010. We'll see.

Anyway, I read The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown over my vacation. My book club selected it for our next meeting. I'd read Dan Brown's earlier books (Angels & Demons, The Da Vinci Code) years ago - for another book club - and remember enjoying the first one but thinking the second one followed the exact same formula. Like those earlier ones and the movies that have been made from them, this was a fast-paced action thriller starring symbologist Robert Langdon, who is brought to Washington, DC, under odd circumstances and finds himself embroiled in a mystery regarding Masonic legends and a box he's been asked to hold onto by his mentor, who is the Director of the Smithsonian or something powerful like that. Beyond being interested in the locale, I did not enjoy the book at all. I felt like it was at least 100 pages too long. Literally, some of the chapters kept saying the same things. Even once the bad guy was caught, there were another like 40 pages before the book ended! Who needs that? Some of the symbology and science (the Director's sister studies Noetic science) was quite interesting but even that seemed to get shoved down your throat in an almost condescending tone. The book almost seemed like an advertisement for Noetic science. And the major "reveal" about the villain was so obvious that I can't imagine that anyone didn't see it coming from a mile away. I'm sure the movie will be much better, as they'll be able to edit out all the crap and make it into a more streamlined story. So my suggestion to all is to wait for the movie!

Happy New Year! Back in DC

Today was my first full day back in Washington, DC. I got back last night about 11pm. It was a relatively easy drive, although it was scary for about an hour in the middle of the hills of Pennsylvania where it was blizzarding a bit. Luckily, it passed over... or I passed through it.

It's been so windy here and my apartment is freezing. The sliding glass door to the balcony in my bedroom basically lets the wind pass right through and although I have had my heater going most of the day, it only gets as warm as about 62 degrees. Brr. That's way too cold for the inside of a house. I can't wait to move next week!

Oh so I knew I was going to forget something at my parents' house, what with making sure I brought everything back that I had brought plus the new stuff I bought and the new Christmas presents, plus the belongings that my parents had been storing that I didn't have room for in the apartment I'm leaving. Anyway, about halfway through my trip, I realized I forgot my new Nintendo Wii console. Oops. That was only by far the biggest present I'd gotten and I forgot it! So now we have to figure out how to get it to me, either by mail or by me buying one and sending the receipt to my parents to return the one there.

Christmas movie review: 2009 Wrap-Up

Well, it's been another season of Christmas movie reviews and below is the wrap-up of all the ratings I gave. I actually have two more movies back home on my Tivo that I might still watch but probably not. With the ones below, I've done 64 Christmas movie reviews since 2006. That's a lot of Christmas movies! I wonder if my ratings have been consistent from year to year...

A+
Christmas in Canaan

A
A Christmas Visitor

A-
Debbie Macomber's Mrs. Miracle
The Ultimate Gift
The Christmas Hope

B+
Surviving Christmas
12 Men of Christmas
Fallen Angel

B
The National Tree
A Diva's Christmas Carol
The Three Gifts
Santa Baby 2: Christmas Maybe
Anne Tyler's Saint Maybe

B-
A Golden Christmas

C
Christmas Town

C-
Thomas Kinkade's Christmas Cottage

Christmas movie review: The Christmas Hope

Rating: A-

New this year on Lifetime, I thought The Christmas Hope was pretty good. It stars Madeleine Stowe and James Remar as a couple who have grown apart after their son's death of two years ago. They are talking about divorcing until they become foster parents to a little girl who loses her single mom just a few days before Christmas. The little girl helps the couple get closer again and helps them both get over their son a little bit. Meanwhile, other small miracles are at work to help them get over their son, too. It's a sweet story of overcoming Christmas pain and renewal and it made me cry, which is always a good thing. It was pretty predictable, but most Christmas movies are. The only reason I rated it an A- and not an A is that The Christmas Visitor, which I watched earlier this month, has most of the same themes and I thought it was slightly better. But this one was still good. I've loved Madeleine Stowe for years and James Remar I only knew from Sex & the City (he was Samantha's older successful businessman boyfriend) but both did a good job. As did Ian Ziering, who had only a small role.

Christmas movie review: Anne Tyler's Saint Maybe

Rating: B

This one was difficult to rate. Saint Maybe is originally from 1998 and always airs this time of year but I'm not sure I'd really call it a Christmas movie. We just happen to check up on the characters around Christmas a few times. Jeffrey Nordling and Mary Louise Parker star as a couple who meet and marry quickly and then seem to immediately have some problems. At least Jeffrey's brother, Ian, thinks so and babysits a lot. After one particular time of babysitting that Ian was not happy about, he says some things to his brother that cause him to drive into a tree. And die. Yes, depressing. Not too long after that, Mary Louise Parker's widow character overdoses and dies, too. Yes, I swear, the first part of the movie had people dying left and right. Well, Mary Louise had two kids from a previous relationship plus a baby that may or may not have been Jeffrey's and now suddenly, the three kids are orphans. Ian feels increasingly guilty and after consulting with a pastor, decides to drop out of school and help raise the children. Which seems to go swimmingly as we then check in with the family like 20 years later and Ian has turned into this near-saint of a person who has basically put his life on hold for these children. Out of nowhere, the kids decide they need to marry him off and just as out of nowhere, they hire a person to come in and organize their house and Ian falls in love with her and they plan to marry. So it wraps up happily ever after. It's semi-interesting in that it shows how one or two events can totally alter the course of one's life but the story just skipped too much in between for my liking. I don't even really understand the title, except that the one daughter says this in passing about Ian right near the end of the film. I'm guessing the book on which it was based tells a much more complete story and I might be interested in reading that someday but, as far as the movie is concerned, it's not really something I have any desire to see again.

Hmm, an interesting sidenote... I looked up the actor who played Ian because he really is the main character and his name is Tom McCarthy. While he's done some acting, he also seems to be a writer and director. He wrote the story of Up, as well as wrote and directed The Visitor and The Station Agent, all three of which are really good and unique stories. So color me impressed.

Christmas movie review: Fallen Angel

Rating: B+

I feel like I'm being harder on movies this year but I'll give Fallen Angel, from 2003, a B+. I think this one originally aired on CBS as a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie but since then, it's aired regularly on The Hallmark Channel around Christmas. It stars Gary Sinise and Joely Richardson, which automatically moves it up slightly on the rating scale, as two people who knew each other when they were very young children and reconnect like 30 years later after a traumatic event in their childhood caused both children to move away from the small town where they'd been living. Gary's character returns after his father dies and although he had separated himself from his father, he finds out a little of what made him tick once he returns to sort out his affairs. Similarly, Joely's character decides to visit the small town after all these years, but doesn't even remember that she'd been there before, and meets up with Gary's character. The two of them learn about themselves and their fathers and overall, it's a story of forgiveness and learning, I guess. It's definitely well-acted but I do feel that some of the back story is needlessly convoluted. Plus, Gary's character seems to be all about reconciling Joely's character with her father but doesn't seem all that regretful that he never got to reconcile with his own father. I guess his actions show regret, but I'm not entirely convinced. It's definitely one of those "open your heart and learn a lesson around Christmastime" kind of stories.