the good, the bad, THE UGLY

Every mall had one, and every girl wanted one. It's Glamour Shots!

With Glamour Shots you were guaranteed a portrait that would bring out the glamorous movie star you always knew you could be and with Glamour Shots help, this dream could be realized. They were able to bestow a flawless radiance simply by adding a soft Barbara Walters focus lens. Years were removed from your face by drawing the eye up to the teased tower that once was your limp lifeless hair. Add a few rhinestones and with a simple jaunty collar pop and you were ready to show people that you were more than just "a great personality."

Crap I want but don't need

Winter Love felt corsage brooch
I have the perfect strapless top for this
Alicia Accessories

Pod
J2

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Didn’t it drive you bonkers all throughout the X-Men trilogy that the story of Wolverine was never solved? X-Men Origins: Wolverine solves that gaping hole and tells the story of Wolverine before Xavier and the X-Men came into existence. I am slightly torn on my opinion of this one, on one hand it was enjoyable and it had a clear and concise plot that explained what it needed to explain so that fans would shut up. But on the other hand, the story line was nothing new.

We first meet the young Wolverine when he was known as James in the mid 19th century, laying sick in bed with his friend Victor for company. When Victor’s father arrives and kills James’s father, James goes into a rage and bone like spears grown from his knuckles and he kills Victor’s father who reveals that he is fact his real father. Since Victor and James are brothers now and both have freaky mutant powers they run away and enter a montage sequence of fighting together in every war from the Civil war to Vietnam. It was in Nam when Victor became a bit tweaked and I have a sneaking suspicion that Victor later becomes known as Sabretooth but that is not discussed in this installment.

Due to their regenerative abilities and claws, these guys avoid death by firing squad and become recruited to a squad of anti mutant mutants lead by William Styker. They have a bit of a falling out due to some less than humane practices and James bails on Styker’s club and his brother and fulfills his lifelong dream of being a lumberjack.

When it is revealed to him several years later that several of the members of the old gang are being murdered, Stryker himself asks for James’s help. When he is refused, Victor murders his girlfriend. Driven by rage, James agrees to do whatever he can to get revenge, and when Styker offers him the chance of a lifetime to become indestructible with a little adamantium added to his skeleton, James jumps at the chance.

It was a truly enjoyable movie, great action, great effects and a comprehensive story that didn’t stray from the known history of these beloved comic characters plus we get to meet Gambit which is totally worth it. I would recommend this movie to any X-Men fan who will most likely devour it anyway, but it would not be a familiar story to casual movie goers. I admit that the story, as it did explain everything and was exciting, needed a little more cayenne pepper for flavor.

Daily Memory

Every Week at work we have "Thirsty Thursday" which usually takes place at the local Irish Pub called something like "Local Irish Pub" and we get our drinks and munchies. Usually three to four people show up, have a drink and head home. This week, someone brought up their distaste for the prices at the Irish Pub and that he knows of a place where the drinks are half price. "It's great" he says "It's called The Elk and the drinks are wicked affordable". Right before leaving, we are told that we will need to enter The Elks with this person as he has a membership card.

Hmmm, Okay, well It must be like a golf club or something or Costco, no worries. So we follow in a caravan to a nondescript building. Pulling into the car park it became blindingly clear after seeing the aging Buicks, that this was not a bar called "The Elks" But an "Elk Lodge."

Oh my God, I'm going to have to play Bridge. We were the only ones that were not members of AARP or close to a natural death. There were men at the bar in USA T-shirts and even a crocheting circle for the ladies.

I couldn't even feign politeness and refused to even take my bag from my shoulder, and I was going to be damned if I was going to do anything time consuming like drink a beverage. You are probably thinking that I am an ageist, you may be right, but the experience was much more like entering the NRA, and as a democrat, I'm just not going to have fun.

THE GOOD, the bad, the ugly

Did you know that the guy who composed the famous "MORTAL KOMBAT" actually wrote a separate track for each of the Mortal Kombat characters? He calls himself "The IMMORTALS" I guess you could consider it a "concept album." Very avant garde. And it has great lines like:

Whoah, Chinese ninja warrior, with your heart so cold. Sub-Zero. Whoah, your life is a mystery. Why you wear the mask? Sub-Zero. Yeah. Yeah. Freezing Vibrations! (Yeah.).

Anyways you get the gist, but this should definitely be something that you need.

Crap I want but don't need

Spectacle
Pretty, a bit too busy to look good on me, but that doesn't stop me from wanting it.
Vintage Chick Designs

Set of 6 UK Britain Queen Royal Coasters
Break me off a piece of this awesomeness!
Naked Decor

Fast & Furious

I like car chases and action but I could give a shit about the car in question which is what makes up 85% of the F&F series. I am not the target audience which is where the franchise is lost on me. Hell, for most of this movie, I didn’t even know there was a plot rolled into the whining exhausts of the rainbow of rice burners before my eyes. I admit though, that I did enjoy the first movie in the series The Fast and The Furious, perhaps because there was a story with the characters as they were introduced and less about the cars. I saw and thought little about the second movie 2 Fast 2 Furious and totally passed on Tokyo Drift. Fast & Furious or as I like to refer to it More Faster & More Furiouser apparently takes place after 2 Fast 2 Be 4 Gotten but before Tokyo Ricer.

At least our old friend Vin joins us, which is remarkable with him being mentally challenged and all, and Rodriguez takes time off from her drunk driving to make an appearance as well before going back to the drunk tank. They have made quite a career for themselves in the Dominican Republic by stealing the tanks of fuel trucks. But they do it with flashy cars of course. Afraid that the heat will come down on his girl, Dom leaves Letty to kick it in some shit hole when he gets the word that she will no longer be appearing in the movie. He returns to L.A. where the rest of the cast show up. We have our old friend the cop Brian turned FBI agent and Mia, Dom’s sister and Brian’s ex.

Still hiding from the law, Dom wants revenge without showing any passion or remorse for the death of Letty which made it difficult for me to remember what his story line was. At the same time FBI Brian is trying to get a zero on a drug ring that is run by some guy named Braga. Since their stories have to cross so that tension can spill out making the characters more identifiable, Letty’s killer and Braga’s drug ring are related. To infiltrate the ring, FBI Brian gets a ricey car from impound to modify and arrives for the “who gets to smuggle the coke out of Mexico” race.

Joining the smuggling team, it is revealed that Letty was a part of the Rice-a-Roni ring as a mole for the FBI when she was killed. The rest of the movie is full of characters with no chemistry and CGI car races that made my inner back-seat-driver sit up and say “Slow down, you could hurt someone!”

Obviously, this movie did not appeal to me but I’m sure it would appeal to someone who subscribes to “Modified Mag”. I personally couldn’t wait for the whole thing to be over.

Daily Memory

1994, Freshman year in college I had to share a dorm room with 4 girls and a suite with 8 in a building where all of my classes and dinning hall were contained. It sucked. But there was a little sparkle of humor in the claustrophobic atmosphere, I could look forward to a sighting of the "Racing Stripe Twins". They were two awkward and skinny redheads that were showered with freckles and only spoke to each other. Sure it's weird that siblings would be that close, but as twins, you could at least tell that if one looks terrible in something, the other one would as well. Like, if one applied their blush in stark stripes across the cheek bone, the other would say "oh dear, that is not the look for me." But as twins, I guess they were used to looking alike and when one made this mistake the other did as well.

It was exciting to catch a glimpse of them together going up the stairs, turning a corner or carrying their lunch tray in the cafeteria. They left quite an impression and I think of them to this day when I fear that I applied my blush too heavily, I think "Shit, that looks like something an R.S.T. would do."

THE GOOD the bad, the ugly

Two of my most favorite things are brought together here. My hatred for hipsters and my love of geriatric games played in empty cafeterias all across the States.

Crap I want but don't need

Whiskey Brown Leather Saxony Clutch with Antique Skeleton Key
This could go with anything
Urban Heirlooms

Alt - Ctrl - Del Three Pillow Set
Love it! Have nowhere to them... but I will not be deterred from coveting them.
Diffraction Fiber

Dragonball Evolution

Never saw the animated series that I believe this movie was based off of, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say this was a far stretch from the cartoon beloved by little boys. I do know that the main character does indeed have unruly spiky hair like a Guido and the villain is green, but that’s all I got. Psyched to get down and dirty with my inner geek, I was like, bring that Dragonball on man. Oh, it was brought alright. Not terribly well written, and not so well acted, I was at least distracted by the moments of brilliant effects and fight scenes.

So, the story goes that a few thousand years ago, there was an evil warlord named Piccolo, nothing is more terrifying than wind instruments I will have you know, and his dog-man servant thing who wanted to destroy the earth. They were stopped and Piccolo was trapped by some monks and the dog thing disappeared. Credits roll and we meet Goku, a high school kid raised by his grandfather and is picked on at school. For his 18th birthday, his grandfather gives him a paperweight with four rotating stars on it and explains the tale of the Dragonball, and how there are seven and when they are brought together, you get one perfect wish from a dragon. If I had a dollar for every time I heard that story on my birthday…

If you get the feeling that someone evil has come up with a plan to collect said balls for a wish, you would be right. So Piccolo, I’m sorry, that name is so distracting, has arisen and is coincidentally gathering the D-balls. So the night of Goku’s birthday, he has ditched grandpa and gone to a party of his crush with an equally lame name of Chi-Chi, Piccolo drops in and crushes Goku’s house and with his grandfather's dying breath, he tells Goku that Piccolo is back in town and that he needs to find Master Roshi who will know what to do.

While Goku is checking out his demolished house, he meets an intruder by the name of Bulma Briefs, but all throughout the movie I thought they were saying Vulva which you have to admit is a lot funnier, who has also had her D-ball stolen. They join up to search for the remaining balls and find Roshi in the form of Chow Yun-Fat who is so perfect, I cannot snark on him.

There are some fun action sequences and some cheesy acting along the way, but not enough to have made this a perfectly cohesive movie, which honestly is very disappointing to me as I really wanted this to be the new Street Fighter, you know, so bad it’s good. I’m not saying that this was a steamy pile of poop, it was however, more like a well funded ABC Family original TV movie.

the good, THE BAD, the ugly

Standard attire for any serious off season renaissance festival fan. This and a crown of dried flowers purchased at last years festival from Lady Lavender who works at my local Borders by the way. I know, it's like meeting a celebrity.

Crap I want but don't need

Chocolate Garden Necklace
You know, for tea time
Coco's Greenhouse

Not Rudolph coat rack
Thanks to 1001 Favorites for discovering the quirky of Icelandic home accessories.
Birkiland

Passengers

I could have told you the plot of passengers without ever having seen the movie. It either means that I have become jaded, or that this plot smelled distinctly like another movie. Perhaps I am being too hard on this one, It stars Anne Hathaway who does her best to suck in this movie, and that adorable guy from Watchmen. But in the end, when the credits rolled, I actually apologized to my sister for making her sit and watch that with me.

Anne plays Clair Summers, a shrink who is given an assignment of her own to manage the therapy of five airplane crash survivors. Aside from being an ill conceived story line, Claire asks all of the survivors to meet with her for a group therapy session where they talk about how they are dealing with surviving. I’m sure it’s an issue for some people so I decide to believe this part. She has trouble with one person, Eric, who just flirts with her but asks her to visit him, not as a therapist. Oh blah. Claire is conflicted, she is his therapist, but she’s also a woman, queue the porno music, but she wants to do what’s best for the patient.

She gathers who was left in a dark and empty cafeteria or whatever and settles into getting to know her survivors. Eric begins a series of life changes, I don’t mean he became a woman, I mean he did stuff like clean out the fridge. A romance also begins to bud between them and with his urging Clair tries to reach out to her estranged sister. While all of this is going on, Claire’s therapy group of four begins to dwindle as they start to disappear after encountering mysterious people.

Claire believes that the airline is behind the crash and the consequent cover up which obviously includes absconding with her patients. As she and Eric begin to dig into this theory, the truth is revealed and oh my God I saw that coming. And again, I can’t ignore the feeling that this plot is familiar in some way…

I personally wouldn’t give this one high marks, but I can see how others would enjoy it. It is neither frightening nor is it taxing in any way to the brain. I demand more than the average human from a thriller/horror than a cutsie romance and an unexpected twist, but if you are one of the many who prefer this genre to be soft core, this would be perfect for you.

Daily Memory

This is going to come as a shock to many of you, but I had a constant stream of teachers that just did not like me very much. Perhaps it was my quirky nature or my creative and dreamy mind, it could have also been that I did very little to make them like me. Rightly so, they were all a bunch of old biddies with sticks up their asses. I knew they didn't much care for me and this was fine. They stay on their side and I'll stay on mine and we agree to leave each other alone.

But no. I had to have one English teacher try to stick it to me. She didn't give me poor grades, or even call on me too often, she tried to get my parents to scold me instead. It worked of course because my parents were always under the impression that everything that highlighted my averageness was worth listening to. But where I pretty much lost all desire to kiss ass, or to have any faith that my parents supported me in anything, was after a parent teacher conference.

It was 8th grade, we had just moved back from London and Mrs. Whats-her-name told my parents that I had a problem concentrating in class. The reason for this was not the fact that I was not concentrating or that I was not participating or not completing assignments, it was because I wore red lipstick.

Yes boys and girls, red lipstick has a way of distracting your mind. And if you have parents like mine, they would believe this crap and then take me for a sit-down where I am told that I can no longer wear the mind distracting lipstick. Seriously, what the fuck?

But, I had my change to prove them wrong. Apparently I was very good in English and literature and once I started High School, all of my English classes and Creative Writing Classes were advanced placement. And I will have you know that I did it all in red lipstick.

THE GOOD, the bad, the ugly

Sometimes, when you walk through the streets of Boston and Cambridge, you come across some absolutely amazing finds. Take this Volkswagon for instance. I stumbled upon this little beauty during the zombie march from Davis to Harvard Square. Now this would normally fall into my "Bad" or "Ugly" category, but when someone takes the time to paint their car 360 degrees with things like Pegasus, howling wolves and leaping whales, you automatically have won a spot in my heart.

Nice going Balcorina.

Crap I want but don't need

A Walk In the Woods Clutch
I am a sucker for silhouette screen prints
Round Trip Vintage

Syberia
I only ask for two things in this world, zombies and adventure games. And pretty jewelry, and my boyfriend, but that's all I ask for, those four things.
Game Stop

The Spirit

…stole what was left of mine. Gack, this was crap, it roped me in with its visual style and then took a dump on my kitchen table. It was just that bad. This was apparently written and directed by Frank Miller, who should not do this again. I think I can say that I am on the fence when it comes to turning comics into movie features, it’s hit and miss, every time. This only piqued my interest with its Sin City art style, but Sin City it wasn’t. It was a one-liner overloaded, bubblegum superhero movie riddled with characters that you can’t relate to because you can’t stand them.

The Sprit is a masked avenger who has an absolute hard-on for the city he protects, no really, I think he would like to lay that city down by the fire and make sweet love to it all night. But since he can’t, he spends his time flipping and jumping around the city in his red tie and Chucks looking for his arch nemesis, the Octopus, who has eight of nothing, so his name makes little sense. Neither the Spirit or Octopus can be killed due to some Ju-Ju Octopus injected into both of them which will become permanent, if only Octopus could get his hands on some blood of Heracles.

Funny thing is, some blood of Heracles has been found and Octopus buys it, only problem is that it is in a case that is tied to another case that holds the Golden Fleece. The case that holds the Fleece was bought by Sand Saref who loves all things sparkly, and since her dad the cop was killed when she was a child, she turned her back on cops, the city and Denny her sweetheart who would grow up to be none other than the Spirit. Sand and Octopus go to pick up the boxes when a fight breaks out between Spirit and Octopus. Sand flees, but not before taking the wrong case of course.

The rest of the movie is about them switching the boxes back…I think. And there were some rather interesting costume changes for the Octopus, including a samurai and a Nazi soldier. The rest of the movie is too boring to recall. And with a 14% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, I don’t believe that I am wrong in my utter contempt for this movie.