Yes. The laziest man in Los Angeles County, (which would place him high in the runnin’ for laziest worldwide) would be proud of my non-accomplishment as a blogger. Like every tool who’s ran for President in last 200 years, I made promises. I promised continuous posts, reviews, sarcasm, a debt free nation and the legalization of marijuana – but just so all the pot heads would have nothing to talk about anymore. Needless to say, I haven’t written an actual post since February. I’d like to blame it on a Roland Emmerich scale disaster, or maybe Kristen Stewart, but we all know that would just make me want to write more.

You see, I love film. I love it so much that I spend a lot of my time watching it. Instead of writing about my experiences, I twitter something real quick then proceed to watch something else. When I do sit down to write, I usually have to clean up my desktop, which includes cleaning my actual desk, then the house, then the car, and then I play StarCraft. Luckily my girlfriend has red hair and loves film as much as I do. By “loves” I’m referring to a girl who was dementedly grinning and gritting her teeth when Terry Crews was blowing people to pieces with an MPS AA-12 “Sledgehammer” during The Expendables.

See? You miss my idyllic rambling and over-exaggerations. I’ve been to tied up with sitting around, talking about going to the gym and complaining about Twilight to actually write something that will make someone want to punch something soft and cute. I really would like to apologize for my Lebowski-like behavior. I will not, however, promise to write more. Hopefully I’ll just feel the superfluous guilt to appease my two readers or actually motivate myself enough to share my unhindered thoughts about something you probably would have enjoyed otherwise.

So what exactly have I viewed in the last 6 months? Here’s a quick list with an unoriginal grading structure:
Daybreakers – C
The Book of Eli – B
The Lovely Bones – B-
Edge of Darkness – C+
Crazy Heart – A-
The Ghost Writer – B+
The Crazies – A-
Cop Out – F
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo – A
The Runaways – B+
Hot Tub Time Machine – B+
Date Night – C-
The Joneses – B+
Kick-Ass – A
The Good The Bad and The Weird – A
The Losers – A
Iron Man 2 – B+
Robin Hood – B-
MacGruber – D-
Get Him To The Greek – C
The A-Team – A-
Invictus – A-
Coco Before Chanel – B+
Toy Story 3 – A+
Despicable Me – A+
Predators – B+
Inception – A+
The Expendables – B-
Scott Pilgrim VS The World – A

There was also about forty others on Netflix, including all of South Park and Dilbert. Looking back though, I realize that many of those were total crap or completely forgettable.

I also attended SXSW again, and enjoyed the crap out of Austin. I saw several great films and two that were really worth mentioning. Monsters, which had incredible CG that was completely done by the director on his laptop, and The Happy Poet, which was about as feel-good as they come.

I wish I had taken the time to write about all these experiences while they were still fresh in my mind, rather than trying to recall them by saying phrases like “Yeah, it sucked pretty hard” or “I remember something awesome happening”. I’ll try harder at not to letting myself lapse like that again. After all, Walter had buddies die face down in the mud back in ‘Nam so I could write this rigmarole for you chowder heads to read.

[editors note:  I haven't had anything worth ranting over lately. Seriously.  Every cup of coffee I've had from an establishment has been either delicious, or already ranted on previously.  So, I'll spare you any crapified coffee rants over places I've decided to re-try in hopes that their poop brew has changed, when in fact, no...they haven't.  This following rant is on ordering coffee, not necessarily the coffee itself...primarily because I was the barista in question.  I wouldn't rant about myself, of course.  Why rant on awesomeness?  Also, understand, that I'm not ranting about my church friends.  I love all of my church friends...and loved all of my previous customers.]

Last Sunday, I was given the opportunity by request to ‘man’ the espresso bar at our church.  I was excited for a few reasons:

1. I haven’t run an espresso bar in over a year
2. Their espresso bar is real. Not your push-button crap. Full on real-life espresso. Adjust the grind. Tamp the portafilter. Steam the milk. Pull the shot.
3. I’m picky about my espresso…which means, I can tell when a shot isn’t going to be good.  I’ll throw a shot away if I think it’s bad. Wasteful?  Heck yes. [side note: If you’re ordering a drink with 2 or more syrups, order decaf, or ask that your milk be ‘extra hot’, just know that I’ll give you a crappy shot.  I won’t waste a good shot on you because you won’t even taste it.

But I digress.  And know that this isn’t a slam against my church friends.  It’s the way they ordered it that reminded me of exact conversations I had with coffee shop customers, so very long ago. Read on…

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been a terrible redunk author.   Well, I don’t know if my authoring skills are terrible, but certainly the non-posting has labeled me terrible.  My attention has been divided between this blog, my other blog, my wife’s business site, video game playing, sleeping, eating, pooping, and uncontrollable screaming.  I’ve also not felt very redunk lately.  I haven’t seen anything redunk.  I haven’t done anything redunk.  I haven’t even smelled anything redunk [to be fair, I haven't spent much time with @rexbarrett, so...you know]. For crying out loud…I haven’t even had a decent cup of coffee lately.

[decent cup of coffee = 4 shots of ristretto espresso]

Also, my social agenda has been jammed full of crap to do.  For instance, I’ve been hanging out with a lot of people lately, like these folks:

There’s no comment that you can make on this that won’t sound racist….so don’t even try.

I guess I have done some redunk stuff lately.  I am working on a video montage of  me driving through wine country. I’ve been so stinking busy lately, whatwith hanging out with the Huxtables ‘n whatnot, that I haven’t had an opportunity to finalize that particular project.

So, @tehshawn…

This post is dedicated to you, my friend.  This post goes out to you and your pretty face.  Mmmm…so pretty.

We gotta get one of these bad boys for the Redunk command center.

April fools used to be one of my favorite days of the year, but as I grew older I celebrated it less and less. This is mostly because I never know what day it is, let alone the month. Well the other day a Canadian stranger (@mirels7) sent me a link to the new Barats and Bereta video via Twitter:

April Fools – barats and bereta

The video brought back memories of joy and mischief. Like the time I filled my boss’s car with popcorn, or the time I replaced the cream filling in Oreos with toothpaste and let’s not forget the many times I hid alarm clocks  all over my brothers room set to go off every half an hour after 2 am. It took him three years to catch on to that prank. For years after he would go search through his entire room before going to sleep on March 31st

This year I decided to think of a new practical joke I could do. Grad school keeps me busy and I spend most of my time at home. I really need to get out more but time is not a luxury I have. While I sat at my desk (it’s not actually a desk, it’s a couch. I don’t actually have a desk, I would like to purchase one but they are just so expensive. That and I got used to using the couch every day. I spend like 3 hours a day on this thing reading homework and writing papers. Look how long this has gotten, that’s kind of out of control. It’s like its own paragraph. I find it humorous, but for those of you who don’t let’s get back to the end of that sentence.)

I devised a plan to unleash on my roommate. Before you get too excited it’s nothing like OMG AMAZING! But it is humorous and very creative. I made a scavenger hunt. Now I know some of you may be thinking that something like this on April fools day would obvious, but you are wrong. Stupid face! Okay that was a little over the top. Anyway he didn’t suspect a thing because I had talked to him on the 30th, he had been out of town for the weekend and I called to ask if he was going to be home soon. He said he would be back the next day and I told him I had made this scavenger hunt and that he could do it when he got home. Now as I quickly learned there are actually 31 days in the month of March and not 30! My plan was in jeopardy but luckily for me he was not able to come home that day and actually came home on the first. I wish I could say I planned it like that but that would be a lie. Meh, who cares. It worked out exactly like I planned it.

For the start of it I wrote a lengthy and pointless message on our refrigerator board. I wrote about how I had gotten him a gift and that he had to follow the clues to get it. The clues were actually riddles and I wrote about 7 or 8 of them and placed them around the apartment. The final piece of paper did not have directions to a prize, instead it told him to go to this web site and watch this video:

After watching the video he sent me this text “oh that was a good one. The most elaborate April fool’s  joke I’ve ever heard of! Ha ha ha.” I called him on the phone and he told me how he actually believed me in the video (I would like to thank the academy). He said that he was impressed and that it was very elaborate. Upon hearing the news of my victory I took a moment of silence to bask in the glory that was my genius. This moment did not last long and was interrupted by Eric saying “Phillip, you need more friends”.

This post isn’t political.  So cool your jets.

This post is, however, very sarcastic.  So fire up your engines. There’s likely a poop joke too.

[what does that even mean?]

Let me just say right off, that going to the movies is a total rip.  My wife and I can’t go to the movies without spending $30 or more.  Frankly, I’d rather blow 30 bones on (cr)Applebee’s.  It seems like a waste of money, even if the movie is epic and awesome and epic.  Right now, movie tix in the KC area run about $10 each.  [do your own math for 2 tix]

I can’t go to the movies without having a box of Junior Mints in one paw and a massive soda in the other.  That right there will run you another $10.  She can go without the pop, but not without the popcorn. With the fiasco and the boneheads at AIG, it doesn’t make sense that those morons, and with governing power knowledge, can in good conscience shell out million dollar bonuses, yet, I’m stuck spending money I don’t have on a movie that will undoubtedly suck the life out of me, leave me a little bit morally depraved, and sick at my stomach because I don’t know how to stop eating Junior Mints whilst washing it down with about 64 ounces of caffeinated asparatame soda. Bigger government will solve the economy problem? Ha! How about free Pepto Bismol shots at the concession counter? I’m tired of leaving every single movie with raging heat in my lower intestine that’s about to explode my britches [and any others within a 20 foot radius].

Sorry. That was grosser than anticipated. I’ve already typed it, so what’s the point in going back to edit? Besides, none of this idiotic post makes sense anyway.

The price of movies is going up, regardless of the crap economy that we’re in or out of at the moment.  CNN went to Washington, to seek out a bailout plan for movie buffs:

If you don’t know, they mashed it up with the AIG congressional hearing.