Iceberglandia

See you in two weeks!

The Iceberg.

Well, the wait was over last night. And the wait was worth it. To sum it up, it is an awesome movie. Fantastic. It really lives up to the hype.

I don’t know what else to say, right now. I am in awe. Well, that, and anything I say may ruin the whole experience for you. If you’re anything like me, you hate people that make comments, spoiler or otherwise, about a movie before you watch it.

Is it a perfect movie? Hmmm… that, I guess is a matter of taste. In my opinion, there are only three flaws. I’m happy to discuss them with you if you care to leave your email in the comments, where we can talk in a less public forum. Ha, I sound like people actually read this shit. In any case, I’ll give you enough time to watch it, and then maybe I’ll discuss them here.

In any case, go see it. It is well worth it. I know I am. Again. Right now, actually. See ya!

The Iceberg.

Oh. Fuck. Yes.

Double “YES”, in fact.

I went to the theatre to buy tickets for The Dark Knight, and I decided to pick one up for my buddy Carl. We had talked about going to the show at noon, so I did just that.

Turns out, he had gone to buy tickets as well, and he too bought one for me. In his case, however, it was for the midnight show. We’re like fucking brothers, I tell ya.

So here’s the plan. Thursday, after work, we run to the Galaxy to catch the midnight show. After that, we go home (our separate homes, in case I need to clarify) to sleep, and the next day, before work, we get to see it again.
Then 8 hours of work, then I come home and gather my shit and my thoughts, and saturday at 6 AM I hop on a plane.

Can life be any cooler?

The Iceberg.

Well, it comes as no surprise (to me at least), but I went the whole weekend without booze. I hope that shuts you naysayers up.
I rocked, and I rolled, and I thrashed, just as promised. I also watched a couple of movies I actually liked. I took a very long walk yesterday through one of the many trails around here, and even saw deer. Hung out for a while at my sister’s place, bought a set of luggage for my upcoming trip and cooked an awesome meal.

Friday, I’ll be at the movies. Yes, finally The Dark Knight arrives. Due to my work schedule, I guess I’m stuck with watching it at noon, but fuck it, As long as I get to watch it. There is a midnight showing on thursday night, and if I can find tickets to that, I’d rather go then. But noon, at the latest.

Then, I’m off to see my daughter for two weeks. Oh yeah.

And after that, I’ll be looking forward to a new Slipknot, the new Metallica and a couple other good albums.
On the subject of the new Metallica album, I’m skeptical. But I would really like to hear something good from them.

Life is, indeed good for now.

The Iceberg.

I fucking love this band. The unique guitar sound, John Tardy’s kickass growls… I wish they put out albums like Elvis (every couple of months, is what I mean).

The Iceberg.

Let me get serious for a minute. I won’t threaten to end my life because I decided to watch a shitty movie, I won’t lash out against a telecommunications company, and I won’t discuss the contents of my iPod or the occurences on my way to work.

Let’s talk drinking. Or, drinking problems.

I’m almost sure I’m exaggerating. I’ve never considered myself to be an alcoholic, and despite the large quantities of alcohol my body tolerates (think amounts that would put Motley Crue to shame), I’ve never felt I have a drinking problem.
Sure, I enjoy, I even indulge in my weekend one-man benders. What’s not to love? The free-flowing rum-&-juice, the foreign beers, the 24’s of cheap beer, the rocking, the rolling, the thrashing… fuck, after a week of hard work and voluntary abstinence, I look forward to the weekend. What else do I have?

Does that represent a problem?

Never, ever, have I missed my responsabilities because alcohol got in the way. The few times I’ve missed work have been either because I was really sick, or because of other events in my life. Sure, I’ve shown up to work with a mild hangover on a couple of mondays, or I’ve been especially quiet during the odd family reunion, but fuck, who hasn’t?

The point I’m trying to make is that yes, I drink. That is not a secret. But it’s not a problem, or so I’ve thought… Until now.

See, I somehow found myself in the situation wherein I promised somebody I wouldn’t drink this weekend. That means, two days at home, trying my damndest to enjoy the musical offerings of Iced Earth, Alice in Chains and Pantera (3 bands I had promised myself to listen to over the weekend) while drinking goddamned water (if anybody recalls, I quit drinking carbonated beverages over 2 years ago).

And while I know I don’t need alcohol, I am terrified of the idea. But a promise is a promise, and I intend to keep it.

I’m not an alcoholic… please try your best not to get me wrong. It’s the same feeling people have when they go on a diet and can no longer eat what they love, or when they break up with their partner and are afraid of living without them.

My mantra for the weekend, I guess, will be this fragment from Stone Sour’s “Inhale”:

“Come one and all, let’s see what happens, the broken man is me“

The Iceberg.

PS
The title for this post was borrowed from a song by Ozzy Osbourne. You know, when he still rocked.

Seriously, what a horrible, horrible way to kill time.

Of course, I was expecting the typical dumb humour that is to be found in a parody movie – after all, I’ve watched all the “Scary Movies”, “Epic Movie”, among others. But, with “Meet The Spartans” the attempts at humour are so dumb, not only did the movie fail to provide me with a scene I could describe as funny (much less elicit actual laughter), but it succeeded in making me roll my eyes more than I have ever done in my life. In fact, my eye muscles still hurt.

The movie, as you can probably infer from the title, is a spoof of 300 (with a couple jabs at other “blockbusters” and “cultural icons”), but relies too heavily on gay humour and infaltile sex references which, I guess, would make pre-teenagers giggle a little bit.

The movie is so bad, I can’t even think of anything to say about it that would constitute a “review”. My recommendation is to do something else with your time. Read the newspaper, go for a walk, dig a hole in your back yard – whatever.

The Iceberg.

A few posts back I cited a few examples of thinking about something and having something related happen soon after. Oh, joy, guess what happened to me last week?

I was just thinking about how, despite thinly veiled attempts at selling me a more expensive phone (warnings on how the one I did buy would almost explode upon looking at it), my Nokia 5200 was doing perfectly fine.
The very next day I decided to fish it out of my pocket so I could look at the time. Alas, the screen had a huge smudge all the way across which made it impossible to do so. I tried turning the phone off and back on, but to no avail – even while off, the smudge was still there. Clearly, something had happened to it and it wasn’t about to go away.
I could still make calls, but try using a cell phone with no screen… No messages, no $7 dollar a month MSN service, no calendar, no calculator, no clock, no alarm… you get the picture.

Worry, I did not. I had backup. Why, upon purchasing my phone, the clever little salesman convinced me that since my phone was more fragile than cotton candy, it would be a good investment to give him somewhere around $130 for a full, extended warranty which would fix or replace my phone if anything – ANYTHING – happened to it.
Stupid simp that I can be sometimes, and with the hurry of getting out of the store (I had to go to work that day and was running kinda late), I agreed. I felt covered.

That goes to show you how naïve I can be when the subject of extended warranties comes up in commercial transactions.

As I had a trip to the mall last saturday anyway, I figured I’d stop by my friendly Rogers Wireless store, the very same one where I had made my purchase a few months earlier, and inquire as to how long it would take to get it repaired or replaced.
And guess what the chump behind the counter told me? That despite having an extended warranty, they would charge me for replacing the screen. How much? I didn’t even stick around to find out. Even if it had been something like 20 bucks, I’d rather fix it somewhere else. You know, just out of principle. Those thieves don’t deserve any more of my money. It’s bad enough that my bills come in elevated figures (as in $25 dollar reconection fees – when my service hasn’t even been disconnected).

Off topic, but as long as we’re talking Rogers here, can someone explain to me why it costs me more for a local call (30 cents a minute) than to call a faraway place like Mexico? Sure, I signed up for a Long Distance Saving plan, I have no problem paying as little as 5 cents a minute to call back home, but 30 cents a minute for a fucking local call?

The Iceberg.