2013 Unchained

Good Flick

New Years Day, I did watch the Rose Parade, due to my chronicled love of parades.  I was therefore devastated when not one bagpipe band was featured.  Somehow I think my daughter was involved but I haven’t figured out how yet.  Speaking of my daughter, she has come out of retirement to start her blog up again.  This is a very good thing because she is a very talented writer, as opposed to yours truly.  She blamed me in part for her return, an indictment I am truly pleased with.  Her blog can be found at:  http://jessicaxmaria.blogspot.com/    You can thank me later.

Apparently, that b****, Mother Nature did not like the most excellent job I did clearing the driveway.  I went out first thing in the morning yesterday and scraped off the last vestiges of ice and felt semi-proud.  This was real pride before the fall kind of stuff because the wind started howling almost immediately. 

The snow that fell a couple days ago was very light and therefore extremely mobile in the wind.  By noon time the driveway was almost completely covered again.  I launched a frontal attack with the now-trusty tractor, employing the wind to my own advantage.  I didn’t really aim the snow, I just got it up I the air and it kind of vanished down range.

I needed the driveway clear because my wife and I were heading out for a movie.  Our daughter warned us away from Les Miserables so I was spared that.  We went instead to see Django Unchained, the latest Quentin Tarantino offering. I was surprised that my wife wanted to see it but did a quick fist pump when I was safely out of sight.

The movie was really long but I hardly noticed because it was so entertaining.  It had Tarantino’s usually snappy, foul mouthed dialogue.   Waltz was perfect as the well meaning but extremely dangerous bounty hunter.  It’s pretty impressive that he steals every scene he was in from Leonardo DiCaprio, Jamie Foxx, and Samuel L Jackson with all of them at the top of their own game.  The action is bloody and almost comical in typical Tarantino style.  There were literally dozens of cameos by stars, and one time stars, which I always love.  It was Tarantino – a spaghetti western set in the pre-civil war Deep South with Jackson setting a new record for MF’s (impressive in and of itself).  I loved it.

We followed the movie with dinner at a nearby Chicago Bar and Grill.  This was unremarkable except for this new device on the table.  You could order drinks from the device and we even paid the bill, complete with receipt, without needing the waitress.  This was a good thing because her work ethic spoke of a very late New Years Eve party the night before.  I know these things must be out in a lot of places to have finally reached Sturbridge, MA but I thought it was kind of neat.

 

We returned home where my college football bowl watching was rudely interrupted (not a bad thing because the New Years Day bowls are just shadows of what they used to be) by my wife.  She impressed me into service making empanadas.  I foolishly demonstrated some ability in this area a while ago and I am therefore part of “Team Empanada” now. She makes them every time the kids come home, as they are this weekend, so I gladly paid the price.  Who wants to watch Northern Illinois play football anyways?

The Device I Thought Was Neat