Hello - another two weeks already, eh? Wow - where does the time go... hell, where did summer and fall go? It's all a blur.
At the end of November, Carole and I went to the Judas Priest concert. Anthrax was the opening act - Anthrax, by the way, has been the opening act at 6 concerts I've seen in my lifetime. Only once have I seen them as headliners. So, ironically, a band that I've only bought tickets for once, is actually the band I've seen live the most times... seven times now! It was great that they've got Joey Belladonna back singing - yeah, John Bush was a WAY better singer, and I'm a big Armoured Saint fan, but bands like Anthrax NEED to stick together, and it was cool to see the original line-up back together again. Judas Priest was as awesome as ever. Rob Halford slows dows a bit more every tour, and he's almost an automaton now - but they're still ageless, and still cranking out a killer heavy show.
For Halloween, Carole and I decided to bail on the whole 'handing out candy' thing at the last moment, and decided to go to dinner and a movie instead. We saw "SAW II", which had better acting than SAW I, but wasn't nearly as good of a psycological thriller as the original. They concentrated too much on adding gore, and too little on inventiveness.
This past weekend we held our pre-empted end of summer party finally - though we've found that not nearly as many people are eager to come to a BBQ when it's pouring rain and 6 degrees out. Of 33 invites, we ended entertaining 9 people - but for that I'm kinda thankful... all food and drink was "on us" that night, and I spent the entire time on my feet tending the BBQ and mixing drinks - and that was only for 9 people! At about midnight we went to the basement studio and jammed for about an hour or so, and that was a lot of fun - haven't done a drunken house jam in years! As is tradition, everyone stayed over, and in the morning they watched a couple of movies while I made breakfast. First course was a quick bacon,scrambled eggs and toast, while the 2nd round was strawberry stuffed crepes with whipped cream! Now THAT went over well!
So work-wise, in the last week I've had my hours cut back then re-extended, had my overtime rate cut in half, and have been told that this 'job action' that has plagued the company may actually be over before the end of next week - so hoorah for normalcy! I'm going to take a LONG vacation when this is all over.
Last night Carole and I did the 'dinner and a movie' thing again. We saw "Jarhead" this time. For anyone contemplating seing it in the theatre, my advise is to rent it - it's not a bad movie, but it's really not the action blockbuster they make it out to be either... in fact, it kinda goes nowhere and has a pretty lame ending ... exactly like the real Desert Shield/Desert Storm. They try really hard to drive home a few points: A.) The war was about guarding the Saudi oil B.) Ground units didn't get to fire a single shot, the war was won from the air C.) The era of conventional warfare is over.
It's just unfortunate that the director didn't think we'd "get it" the first 3 or 4 times... yeah, we get it - what, did they mistakenly ship us the American version of the film? Here in Canada, telling us once or twice should have done the trick, thanks...
So all in all, the acting was okay, there were a few tidbits of original story line, but as a WAR film, following a unit that never sees an enemy combatant and never fires a shot isn't exactly a thrillride. But that was the point, wasn't it.