Granite, Watchmen restitution

Friday after work I stopped at the pet store to load up on dog food, refills for dog busy toys and bird food.  The total bill, $181.  Yes that is crazy considering that won’t quite be enough food for a month.  That total doesn’t include the money Ali spends on vegetables for Nicki’s meals as well.

Saturday morning  the two dogs piled into the party van while Ali drove the Camry. We had to drop off the car for an oil change before heading to the counter top place.  Sadie refused to take a dump before we left so instead of risking a pile on the living room carpet we decided to take them with.  We also made a pit stop at my mom’s work to drop off some Pampered Chef stuff she ordered.

So when we got to the counter top place we followed our sales lady over to the granite yard to pick out the actual slabs of granite that will be used.  It was a short ride from the store.  As we walked through the place we admired the many beautiful granite slabs on display.  We came to the style that we were going with.  There were two shades available, we went with the slabs that had the deeper, darker browns.  After tagging the slabs we headed back to the store to finalize everything.

We were surprised when our sales lady said the dogs were welcome to come into the store and walk around, good deal.  We picked out our sink.  Instead of the shallow, double bowl stainless sink that we have now we are going with a much deeper single bowl sink that is made out of a granite composite.  It is supposedly impervious to just about anything.  We are hoping the combination of a deep single bowl sink with the new high profile overhead faucet will result in a much easier time of cleaning large items in the sink.  We paid our 50% deposit and scheduled the “templating” where someone comes out and takes exact measurements that will be used to manufacturer the counter tops.  That will happen this Thursday.  After that the counter tops should be installed sometime within the next two weeks.  It’s exciting to finally have this item that has resided on the to-do list for years finally crossed off.  I think it will really look nice when complete.

When we got back to the house we decided to tackle the March cleaning project since it was the last weekend of the month, cleaning our bedroom.  Now you would think that cleaning a bedroom wouldn’t be a big deal.  I would think the same thing.  Somehow we managed to spend close to four hours on the project.  It’s a bit misleading because cleaning the bedroom also meant cleaning the master bathroom.  We ripped up the bed and cleaned under it.  While the bed was ripped up I decided to fix the headboard which was only attached with one screw on each side.  I also installed left over 6 inch decking to the bed frame to function as a cat barrier instead of the assortment of pillows, blankets and sweatshirts I had stuffed under there to keep Spook out.

We dusted surfaces that never see attention normally, we cleaned out the cabinet in the bedroom that holds a variety of cosmetic/ hygeine/medical items as well as ripping out everything in the big drawer in the bathroom and cleaning it thoroughly.  Ali threw a ton of shit out, when I pulled the trash bag out it had to weigh close to 25 pounds of nothing but expired medicines, worthless cosmetics and other knick knacks that were just taking up space.  I climbed up on the tub and took everything off the three shelves in the bathroom and dusted them.  It was gross, there was a thick coating of dust on everything.

Ali was really burning out down the homestretch of the project.  She just wanted it to end.  I shared her feelings but knew the end was in sight.   We wrapped the project up finally a little after 4. 

Sunday morning while Ali went to spinning class I was busy knocking out the inside housework so we would be able to make the 12:45 showing of Watchmen at the Coconut Point theater we like.  I saw my first preview of Watchmen probably close to a year ago.  It sounded fantastic.  A super hero movie from the the producers of my favorite movie of all time, 300???  It sounded like a can’t miss flick for me.  Watchmen came out a few weeks ago.  I have heard both good and bad reviews of it.  Of course the thing you hear about more than anything is blue penis.

So Ali agreed to go with me.  She didn’t do her normal pre-movie investigation where she finds out the plot, the ending and if there is any nudity involved.  I did no thorough investigations besides knowing the movie was very long at two hours and forty five minutes.  We got to the theater late, only 5 minutes before the showtime.  Luckily in true Coconut Point fashion, the huge theater only had a handful of people in it, I love this place.

We sat through the now normal double digit previews.  Of all of the films shown the one that got my blood pumping was the new Terminator flick coming out in May, it looks great. I’m excited to see it.  Ali didn’t share my excitement about it and in fact asked me to start auditioning people that would like to go see the film with me.

This may be a Watchmen spoiler for those that have not seen it however I wouldn’t worry about it.  Hopefully by the time you finish reading you will have no desire to go see it.  Going into the film I knew nothing about the Watchmen.  I never read the comic book, never heard of any of the characters.

 Ok, so the movie starts with a bang.  There is a high action fight scene that utilizes a lot of the same sort of effects that were used throughout 300.  Super slo-mo punches to the face with ample amounts of blood splattering everywhere.  The scene was filled with violence and mystery as the viewer had no idea why the cigar smoking tough guy was thrown out a window.  The movie then starts trying to fill in the blanks as far as the history of each Watchmen.  The timeline constantly shifts between the past and present day.  I’d say for the first hour or so I was trying to take it all in, keeping track of the various events in the timeline thinking it would all pay off as the movie continued.  However I soon realized it was just a stupid, shitty movie that was trying really hard to be dark and mysterious.

I was glad the theater was dark else Ali would have seen that at times my face was red with embarrassment from bringing her to see such horseshit.  There was the gratuitous soft porn scene with the nerdy hero guy that I could have cared less about.  Then it cuts to a grotesque prison scene where Rohrschach is being held.  The scene featured a guy getting his arms cut off with an angle grinder.  There was another equally sick scene where Rohrschach uses a guys head as a chopping block after he discovers he murdered a little girl and fed her remains to his dogs.

Then of course there is the blue penis.  I had ample warning about Dr Manhattans blue penis.  However I was under the impression what was meant was he was wearing something like a speedo where you could see the outline of his blue penis.  Nope, his blue penis is out swinging in the wind.  The blue penis does not make just a cameo appearance,  it is the star of the show.  For some reason the producers thought that seeing a big blue penis repeatedly during the film would add something.  Um no, it was disturbing and it just didn’t make sense.  Why the F did the guy need to be naked most of the time?    Everywhere you looked it was blue penis.

Then lets get to the ending of this piece of shit.  It had the all too common ending where the guy you thought was good was actually bad.  Dr Manhattan or Dr Penis has god-like super powers.  He can explode a person with the wave of his hand.  Well after being double crossed by the “good” guy he shows up to take care of business after good guy kills hundreds of millions of people to create a greater world peace.  Dr Penis could have just vaporized the guy instantly.  No, instead he lets the guy run away and throw a switch which apparently destroys Dr Penis.  Well Dr Penis of course is too smart for that and instead appears outside the building in super size form.  He reaches in to squash the good guy but stops.  Good guy explains to him how his mad plan actually created greater world peace.  Dr Penis agrees and lets good guy live.  Instead of killing him, he vaporizes Rohrshach who was planning to blow the whistle on the madness. Dr Penis decides to go live on another planet and the world lives happily ever after.    

It was just a ridiculous movie.  During the last two hours I kept checking the time for Ali.  She tried to fall asleep but it was just too loud to do so.  It was the first movie that was so bad that I actually had to pay restitution to Ali for making her see it.  (well techincally I paid small restitution for the last Rambo) She drug me into a pet store where I had to agree to her buying a dog treat container we didn’t need.  Needless to say I was extremely disappointed in the film.  I wouldn’t even recommend watching it for free. It gets the rare distinction of earning a D on my rating scale.

The rest of our Sunday was pretty laid back.  We spent a lot of time commenting back and forth about just how shitty the movie was.  Back to work, if I never see another blue penis I will be quite happy.