Crit Appreciation Day

As I sit here luxuriating in the glorious splendor that is having a Monday off of work watching vintage horror (Fright Night) I can't help but feel thankful for the FANTASTIC birthday I just celebrated with people I love and always seem to have tons of fun with. Sure, I'm hungover, STILL (even though I haven't had a drink since the wee hours of Sunday morning) and look like someone who's been rode hard and put away wet, I spent WAY too much money shopping, traveling a bit and drinking copious amounts of alcohol with some pretty tasty food tossed in for good measure. However, I leave the weekend with a mind full of wonderful (and a few hazy) memories, mementos and photographs.

On my actual birthday, The Hubs and I decided to make a little trip up to Newport, KY to visit the aquarium. Even though they didn't have their own Aqua Man swimming about distributing his own form of watery justice, they did have a pretty nifty jelly fish display

and a GYNORMOUS alligator snapping turtle that could easily smash a persons face in one bite. I found this last fact fascinating. We spent some time ogling at the only jaws-esque shark in the place and concluded our excursion by meandering about the shops outside of the aquarium, which, much to the Hubster's everlasting joy, included a candy shop.




We opted to try out a new Mediterranean restaurant for dinner that night,Petra's, a cuisine we normally love, but were let down by appetizers still frozen in the middle and shasherma's with loads of fat on the meat *insert gag*. Needless to say, we were not members of the clean plate club that evening.
Later in the night a friend accompanied us to watch the newest installment of the Harry Potter movies at a local Movie Tavern. There is no greater invention than a movie theater and a tavern combined. We ordered a drink titled "The Big Blue Thing Margarita for 2" and slurped our way through what I considered to be one the best Harry Potter movies to date (yes, I've seen, and loved, them all). The only downside to the night was losing a penguin necklace that KC had given me only 5 hours earlier for my birthday. I had been lusting after that thing for months, only to recieve it as a gift and lose it to some theater cleaning person who probably gave it to some slutty 15 year old. GAAAHHHH. Still burns my biscuit.
Friday I spent the night watching True Blood with a friend and co-worker who I have recruited into not only watching the series but also reading the novels. We drank two bottles of wine that night and ended up talking about everything from annoying co-worker to Rush Limbaugh. I can honestly say she is the ONLY friend I have that actually likes the latter. I forgive her because of her keen sense in wine selection and her rapier wit.
Saturday was titled "Crit Appreciation Day" by my friend Paul, pictured here...



He's giving the thumbs down as the third gospel song was sang during karaoke at THE BAR!


This was the day I spent with my friends celebrating that I had survived another year relatively unscathed and only slightly more jaded that the previous year (of course I reached the height of cynicism at the early age of 8). We began the evening dining at my favorite pizza joint, Old Chicago Pizza. We waited an hour to be seated since there were 12 of us only to be separated into separate booths. Lame. We spent the evening shouting back and forth over shoulders and such and passing plates of pizza and appetizers. After we had enough of that, we opted to visit the Collins Eastland Bowling Lane for karaoke night. I had always wanted to sing karaoke but had either been too intoxicated or too sober to sing. Evidently, 9 Bud Lights=1 Critty drunk enough


to sing to a room of rowdy rednecks singing such inspirational numbers as "Go Tell It On The Mountain", "The Heart Don't Lie", various Conway Twitty songs and even Enrique Iglesias. I convinced KC to accompany me and we shook up the place, and made our karaoke debut with Billy Idol's "Rebel Yell" and followed it up a little later with MJ's "Billie Jean". We had some trouble out of an older, fatter douchebag Charlie Daniel's look alike slamming our "Billie Jean" performance which he titled "the stupidest thing he had ever seen until he saw our friend taping it and then decided that was the stupidest thing he had ever seen." I have a major qualm with people who take karaoke seriously. I promptly told him I thought he was a pathetic asshole who shouldn't confuse a bowling ally bar with the American Idol showroom and that perhaps he should wait for his ship to sail elsewhere. He did and we were left to sing off key and white people dance in peace and boy did we. Paul ended up singing the theme song to Cheers, Roy sang "Brickhouse" with KC as a back up dancer and there was a group rendition of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'".


So.
I'm back ya'll. I'll be checking out everyone's bloggings since I've been on hiatus throughout the night tonight.

Wasssuuppp?

Over the weekend, the Hubs and I decided to watch Sacha Baron Cohen's (I wonder if he just threw in that Baron part for comedic value?)newest movie, Bruno, that we will all have to endure hearing endless quotage of for the rest of the year (think Borat's "verrrrryyy niccccee.") The Hubs will probably be leading the band wagon as he was still quoting Borat as were walking to our seats. I'm not sure if it was his way of expressing his excitement over seeing a new film that he could rip off in his daily comedic meanderings, or if he was reassuring himself that even if this film flopped he could still fall back on the various Borat catch phrases he'd memorized ("Do you want to make sexy time?") Keep in mind now, I really enjoyed Borat, but didn't feel as much of a need to incorporate it into my everyday vernacular (but enough to sport a "Glorious Khazikstan" t-shirt.)
I was expecting a theater packed with testosterone, but was pleasantly surprised to find that the ratio of men to women was pretty even (KAPOW! Take that sexism!)
Now I'm not going to give away too much of the movie because it makes me want to do the Mexican hat dance on the face of whoever spoils a movie for moi.
What I will say is, be prepared to see full blown penis action....and talking penis holes. That's all I'm saying.
What I do like is that Sacha seems to always find the most uptight groups of people...stage parents, terrorist groups in the middle east, publicists and celebrities, and then makes a movie out of their ignorance. We laugh because we know it's true. Something that seems so outrageous on the screen, like the recurring extreme racism and prejudice in Borat, is a reality for a lot of people (unfortunately) in the grand ole U.S. of A.. Laughter is a powerful thing and by making movie's like Borat and Bruno, Sacha is letting us know, in his own twisted, hilarious way, the things about the world that he finds lacking and exposing it in such a way that even though your laughing, your also thinking. That's exactly why I think he's a comedic genius.
Best line of the movie occurs after congressman Ron Paul pronounces Bruno a “queer,” the flamboyant fashionHEsta laments, “I couldn’t even shtup Rupaul (sic). How am I going to get famous?"

In other news.
This will probably be my only post this week seeing as how I'm going to take a few days off to celebrate my big 2-8 birthday with my friends and kinfolk.
I plan on indulging in lots of adult beverages and I really don't think ya'll want me posting when I'm all pumped full of Kentucky Ale (best beer around in my opinion!) and rum. My birthday falls on a Thursday this year (woot!) so we'll probably be hitting up a karaoke bar of some sort downtown to add that special kind of magic to the night that only singing off key amongst strangers can do. *=-)

So.
Wrapping up.
Go see Bruno but be prepared from some man sausage.
I've survived another year with minimal scarring.
I will be drinking my pants off after Wednesday of this week.
And last but not least. If I post something even more grammatically incorrect than normal about Sasquatch, ice skating or freakishly strong babies, you'll know I'm having a great birthday.

Ciao!

In your heaaaaddddd...zombieeeesss.....*insert Cranberries song here*

For the last three weeks I've had various dreams all with one central theme....zombie apocalypse.
Although I'm an avid movie goer with a special place in my heart reserved solely for the "horror" genre, I haven't watched zombie cinema that was worth a damn since Shaun of the Dead.
Anyway, my dreams have been pretty flippin' realistic. I've woken up at least once a night since the dreams started even when taking melatonin (which helps combat my insomniac tendencies) with a cold sweat and much elevated heart beat.
It's times like this that I wish I had a gypsy, psychic, dream interpreter-ish friend to ask what the significance is in watching my parents get mauled by zombies or watching myself lop off zombie heads via a motorcycle I wish I had, or lead a group of nomadic survivors from one location to the next while looking for a can of pineapples to complete a zombie cure (or if they're anything like ham, a great way to baste one!) I always knew pineapple was a wonder fruit.

Zombie's have been on my mind (brraaaaiinnnnnsss!!??) so often lately that I actually had an honest to God discussion with a friend of mine on why zombie's are always thought of as brain eaters. That idea didn't come from the zombie that first orginiated in voodoo culture, they were just people that bugged the shit out of their family and friends enough that said family and friends would consult with a bokor (a fancy schmancy term for socerer) to have "annoying persons" light switch" turned off. In other words, they went and got themselves zombiefied ( I can think of several applications where this would be handy in my own everyday life but have yet to meet a bokur in KY suburbia.) And how, pray tell, are said brain dead zombie creatures supposed to get to our brains anyhow? Our skulls are pretty freaking tough...and zombies, well traditional zombies, are pretty fucking stupid. You don't get super powers when you join the ranks of the undead...so how the hell are zombies supposed to be able to just chew thru the human skull? If you don't count "Dawn of the Dead" zombies aren't capable of using power tools (or in that movie operating rifles and sawed off shot guns)....
Ahhh...this is were my thoughts have been as of late. No working on the cure of cancer or writing the great American novel for moi...I've got zombie's on the brain.

In other news, I'm hosting a BBQ for Kaycie's 27th birthday this weekend. She's neurotic enough to want to host the party a week in advance just to bypass July 4th shennanigans. When I say host, I just mean I'm relaying the message to everyone we know. She's the only person I know that plans their own birthday gatherings, her requirements are that specific. The night is going to include going to a new local nightclub, the Bakers 360 lounge in downtown Lex (which is thankfully only about 2 miles away from my house.) The place looks kind of pretentious (whereas I prefer dives, pubs, taverns, things of a more low key nature) but I'll go for the sake of my friend. Yarrrg. I'll be sure to let ya'll know if that went over like a lead balloon or not.
Welp, it's about time I head out and get some festive do dads for the party.
Remember, in case of a zombie apocalypse...*best when listening to Rob Zombie's "Living Dead Girl"*