Weekend Review

Did the "official college visit" deal with daughter #2 this past Friday and it sounds like she's ready to sign on the dotted line. It's the same school that I attended back in the FORTRAN punch card era and walking around the place brought back more than one or two memories. If you've gone on one of these things before (and we've attended a lot), it's a predictable drill. First, you're welcomed to an auditorium and shown some slick testimonial piece featuring a lot of happy, multicultural faces extolling why they chose good ol' College U and found karma and reason for living (while not mentioning on camera the hot guys/chicks and parties) . Then, a personal welcome by some happy recruiting office type informing why they are delighted for us to be there and why our group represents the best and the brightest and that kind of smack followed by instructions on where to meet our campus tour guide. We then rallied outside by the founder's statue; a grim, dour old guy who obviously suffered from piles and consumption and maybe the Yellow Jack before keeling over from the pox or lye enemas or something. Our guide was an ex-jock now working for the university who was a little light on details (he was off by about a hundred years in terms of the school's founding) and heavy on the use of "that's cool" and "amazing" (see blog entry from last year in which I ragged about the excessive use of this adjective). Essentially, the university is amazingly cool. Anyway, it was freezing outside and daughter #2 and Mrs. Bulba were ready to call it a day by 2pm or so. Fortunately, no certified checks had to be signed.

Saturday was gorgeous--read the paper, worked out and then played golf (badly). Made it home to discuss movie options with the missus (it was her "turn") and the intention was to see "The Last Station" but the first showing wasn't until 7:30pm and anything related to Tolstoy, no matter how entertaining, tends to put me in a deep, Russian sleep. So, we looked to see what was showing at around 5pm and the fateful decision was made to take in, "Valentine's Day." If you are a guy, let me be brief about this: for the love of all that is dear and holy in your life, do not see this movie even if it means you will not receive any type of sexual favors for one (1) year. That may sound harsh, but hear me out. I went fully knowing that it was a chick flick but thought that I could pretty much tolerate it and then afterwards, flush it out of my system after a stop for appetizers and drinks and then back to the casa for fun and games. Wrong. Highly Wrong. Categorically wrong. Tragically wrong. The type of wrong that had this been a war, thousands of lives would have been lost wrong. Wrong in the sense that if there had been a guy walking up and down the theater aisle offering violent, coma inducing smacks to the head with a two by four for five hundred bucks I would have gladly paid it wrong. The movie siphons whatever energy and life that exists in your body and jettisons it to Cloth World or wherever Hell currently resides--I could barely lift my head to drive home afterwards. Hideous beyond belief and a cinematic suckfest that makes a moody French art film offering on even keel with the first twenty minutes of "Saving Private Ryan." Anyone and everyone associated with the production of this movie should be sent to a North Dakota work camp--a work camp featuring ceaseless beet farming and dung gathering where infomercials featuring Joy Behar and Sarah Palin are broadcast on a continuous loop and where inmates must battle face ripping chimpanzees for food pellets. The story is beyond sappy with grating and irritating performances turned in by: Jennifer Garner (has a facial expression of someone who has never had a decent bowel movement), Anne Hathaway (can't she just go somewhere and be a vegan truck stop prostitute for the rest of her life?), Ashton Kutcher (Demi: please don't let him out of your sight ever again--wear the dog collar or whatever ), George Lopez (playing the part of the "magical Latin guy" to dispense wisdom to the witless Kutcher), Taylor Swift (so unflinchingly bad that she alone proves without question that country music has hit toxicity levels previously thought unreachable), Shirley MacLaine (in a part that was so awful that you can clearly read her expression of "Now I fully understand why there are no decent parts for older actresses" combined with, "Had I brought the revolver, I could have taken out Garry Marshall and saved the world from this shit ever hitting the screen") and the always insidious Julia Roberts who was actually the shining light of the enterprise due to her rather limited on screen time. Lastly, in deference to stuff related to minors and the innocent and all that I won't get into the kid parts prominently featured other than to say the child actors used are just not being spanked enough and with the right type of vigor. In short, I didn't like it.

Mrs. Bulba and Future Collegiate Daughter attended some type of "mother/daughter tea" thing on Sunday afternoon that I don't even want to know about, so I used that as an opportunity to see "Shutter Island" as the missus indicated a strong disinterest in getting anywhere close to it. Therefore, I was the creepy old guy sitting alone in the middle of the theater, armed with a large popcorn and coke and the minimum two spaces vacant on each side of him. Yeah, that guy. Anyway, I like Scorsese and the movie had some good touches but he didn't do a stellar job in tying it all together. Okay, but all in all, disappointing. Lots of Hitchcock renderings but just didn't hit the notes. That said, I wouldn't have payed someone to knock me out.

Then, after dinner last night, watched the whole damn entirety on TCM of "Ben Hur" including the chariot race. Daughter #2 asked, "Who's the hottie with the body?" when she saw the hunky Heston in his galley slave kit--hope that made Charlton happy in heaven's firing range.

There's more but you kind of get the general idea.