At Least I'm Not Drinking Alone

Okay, I'll admit it.  I've been drinking.  Lori Agazarian has left and Maya's come home, but Lori left a bottle of wine as a way of saying "thanks for having me," and we cracked it open.  I've had two glasses, and on top of having had practically nothing to eat all day, I'm actually pretty crocked!  Whoo hoo!

Anyway, not much exciting has happened in the last week.  I booked my ticket to Toni Schlemmer's wedding at the end of May, and I decided to take Tom Langdon up on his gracious offer to visit him in Florida, so I booked that ticket too, and I paid a boat-load of bills.

True to form for me, and my crazy (actually, if I were more honest, I would say "stupid") relationship with money, I didn't bother to take into account in all this bill-paying/ticket-buying frenzy that I might need some money to live off of for the next ten days!  I don't get paid again until the 30th, so this next week will be a bit lean.

On the good side, I got to see Ken Bolden on Friday, when we went to see A Mighty Wind.  This film might turn out to be my favorite of Christopher Guest's films.  I liked Best in Show well enough, but I didn't enjoy it as much as many people did, so Waiting for Guffman was still at the top of the heap for me.  I include This is Spinal Tap among his films, even though it wasn't really his film (didn't Rob Reiner direct that one?  I'm not sure).  But A Mighty Wind not only made me belly laugh (probably a first for that since I saw Best in Show), but it also actually made me tear up at one point, so thoroughly was I caught up in the world he created.  I'm a big sap that way.

On Saturday, Ken and I hooked up with the Lagemans (or, as I like to call 'em, "the Lagemæ"), and we saw Better Luck Tomorrow, an interesting film about a group of Asian-American kids who are, essentially, their own little crime syndicate while maintaining straight A's in school and filling out applications for Ivy-League colleges.  Interesting film   It was, actually, a compromise candidate, 'cuz it was the one film we all had a mild interest in seeing that no one had already seen.  I found it entertaining and disturbing all at the same time, which, I'm sure, was the point.  Justin Lin, the director, managed to throw in a lot of visual gags that were very subtle; he's got a talent for painting an absurd visual picture in a really intense moment, and doing the same thing during innocuous moments too.  The film ultimately left me disappointed though, mostly because I didn't see any redemption happening for the main character... I think I wanted to see him changed for the better, and I don't think he was.  Clearly, however, Mr. Lin didn't want my opinion during the filming, so he probably ended up with a better film because of that.

I stayed home today and worked on updates to the website.  It took most of the day, but I managed to get the pictures online from the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens trip Eric, Carin and I took last weekend.  You can see the new photos (and there're plenty of them, so make sure you check it out when you have a few minutes to kill) on the picture page.

Hope you enjoy!