Not much of a bang

The 4th of July weekend started for us on Thursday and will probably go on til Tuesday. Not that we planned it that way. Not that we were going to do anything interesting. And not that we ended up doing anything interesting after we remembered that we'd have all this time off. Having all this time off also means having a lot less money, so there's no point in planning a trip or anything. We've spent too much money just hanging around the house doing the regular stuff.

My husband just had off an extra three days, because they couldn't schedule any work this weekend. People just have better things to do than get their pictures taken. So on his first day off we went to see Hancock. It was okay. I didn't see that coming. Somehow not what I expected.

Speaking of not seeing that coming, we just caught up with the Dr. Who spinoff, The Sarah Jane Adventures. That was great. But I won't spoil it for those who haven't seen it.

Anyway, we were at the movie theater watching the previews before Hancock. I hate spoilers. Once I've seen or heard enough to know that I'm going to watch a certain movie, I don't want to see or hear anymore about it. So I'd already seen a preview for the movie Blindness, which looks to be like The Day of the Triffids, only without the Triffids. So I'd already decided to see it, and I don't want to hear or see anymore about it, but there was another preview of the movie Thursday, so now I know more about the plot than I wanted to know ahead of time. Oh well.

Then there was a preview for The Day the Earth Stood Still. Now, when I first heard about this I didn't think that particular movie needed a remake, though I'm probably one of the few people who really enjoys remakes. The second version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers is really good, and it might even be my favorite movie. The Fly and The Fly II are both good. Miracle on 34th Street gets remade every twenty years or so, and I think all versions turn out pretty good. Lost in Space would have been excellent if they'd written a script that didn't switch to a different time theory in the middle of the film. So I really don't have anything against remakes if they are done well. But I don't think that I would have picked this movie for a remake. It was made within ten years of developing the atomic bomb and within five years of first seeing flying saucers, and it just really needed to be made right at that time. --Why don't you quit trying to blow up each other and learn to cure cancer or something? Grow up or else.-- Other films with a similar theme were made at about the same time. My dad really liked this low budget thing called The 27th Day, but I doubt that anyone else has ever heard of it.

Anyway, it was a message sort of movie, not an amazing special effects movie, and I wasn't sure that we needed another version of the film fifty-seven years later. But what the hell, it's fifty-seven years later, so let's go ahead and do it. Especially if we can get cool special effects and Keanu Reeves in it. At the beginning of the preview, they almost make you think that it has something to do with The Matrix. The preview looks very impressive. If it goes well, maybe they can remake The 27th Day, only add enough techno-babble so that the ending will make sense.

There was a preview for a third Starship Troopers. This one is direct to video. I'm not sure if that's from lack of plot, or just because the bad CGI won't hold up on the big screen. I suspect it is both. But unlike the second film, it has the characters from the first story, so I will probably watch it anyway.

This weekend I also sort of accidentally went ahead and watched Stargate: Continuum. I won't get into it much, cause I hate spoilers. But I think that I won't be giving much away by saying that it is a time-travel plot, and I liked this movie better than the last one, maybe because I like time-travel stories. SG-1 has traveled in time before, and those were good storylines too.

Other than that, Friday we didn't do anything. And I don't mean that we didn't do anything special for the 4th, I mean that we really didn't do anything. I got up and blogged a bit, went back to bed and read a little bit. Then we watched the Stargate thing. At some point he ate a hog dog and I ate leftover pizza for breakfast. I read some more while he was on the computer. Then I was thinking that I should eat lunch, but I really didn't feel like it and ate a bunch of cookies instead. Then my husband wanted to go eat, but I wasn't hungry because of the cookies. So he read for a bit and I used the computer, and after a while we went to Panchos. I'm not sure when that was, except that it was after two but before four, so I'm not sure if that counts as late lunch or early dinner. We came home and I remembered that I hadn't watered the plants yet, so I did that, and then I was thinking how I hadn't done any work. We were going to go for a walk, but very soon into it we decided to turn back. It was hot, but mainly I was just too tired. Too tired from what? We didn't do anything except go to Panchos. We didn't do even just normal stuff like wash dishes. I didn't do any laundry or any sorting or anything. Except for watering the plants late, I didn't do anything in the garden. We didn't even have sex. Why the hell was I so tired? Later, we did manage to take that walk, and I tried to figure out a bit of knitting from this video I rented, but I didn't try for very long. So that was it. We didn't go anywhere to watch fireworks. In fact, we didn't even bother to go outside and try to watch any just from the house. I was just too tired. But what the hell was I tired from?

Anyway, like I was saying, no big excitement on the 4th of July. Other than watching the Stargate thing the most excitement we had that day was at Panchos when I tried to eat a roasted jalapeno. I know better than to eat those, really I do. But I got one anyway and sliced it. And the tip of a pepper usually isn't as hot as the rest of the pepper, and the hottest part is nearer the stem where there are more seeds. So the first bite was good, and the second part was good. And then I kind of forget what I was doing and stopped being careful. About the fourth bite or so was a mistake.

Taz hate pain! TAZ HATE PAIN!

Okay, that's enough excitement for one day.

Someone started their holiday weekend off early by stealing my brother's grill earlier in the week. But I guess the smoker was too heavy for them and they left it. So we still went to my brother's place on Saturday and had brisket for lunch, but it wasn't as big a deal as it was about a month ago. No grill, so no hotdogs, no corn, no stuffed peppers, etc.... And there were only four of us, while last time there were six of us.

So that was pretty much it for our holiday weekend. I spent most of it reading the Tripods trilogy. I should have tried to get some work done yesterday, but, no. I spent one more day being totally lazy. Anyway, it turns out that I read the schedule wrong and my husband has to work today, and he even has to leave early, so that's soon enough to think about work.