Nanny McPhee

Nanny McPhee
Some will obviously want to compare it to Mary Poppins or any number of other “kiddy tales with a nanny”. I can’t speak about many of those other ones but I CAN say that comparing it to Mary Poppins Is unfair. Mary Poppins was about a nanny who came into a family that was whole but the parents were just too busy to watch the kids. The kids, themselves, weren’t “bad”… just bored and lazy. Mary Poppins comes in and uses kindness and love to help the whole family grow together and learn they need each other.
Nanny McPhee is a kiddy version of Freddy Kreuger!! She uses torture and intimidation to get the attention of some truly despicable children and only once they begin to BEHAVE does she show any sign of kindness to them. Had the story NOT established just how BAD these little brats are, parents would be upset about what McPhee does.
Wait.. let me stop for a second and say that I enjoyed this. It was better than some of the other blatantly kiddy crap that’s come down the pipeline lately. It is what Lemony Snickett SHOULD’VE been: enjoyable and endearing. The characters are mostly kid stereotypes on the surface but their own knowledge of themselves set them apart by the middle of the tale. They KNOW they’re bad and often do the bad things INTENTIONALLY. They KNOW right from wrong and are making conscious choices to BE bad. We see this in the quieter moments when the children are alone together and discuss plans. They are a community with a leader (the eldest son) and the mother figure (eldest daughter), the brain, the cutie-pie, the baby and so one. The kids are nearly pitch perfect and manage some rather impressive subtleties in their acting that are damn impressive.
The adults aren’t pushovers either. All the characters are there for a reason and not one of them is JUST for laughs. If the character is in it for more than five minutes, there is a REASON for it. This, sadly, means it doesn’t have the low brow humor that most kiddie movies throw in to make the kids in the audience giggle (not a LOT of it, anyway) and CAN come off as a bit too dull. Some kids in the audience may not stick with it which is too bad for them. The message of family and kindness actually feels more genuine in THIS than in Poppins.
Emma Thompson shows why she was once THE actress to get in a movie. She is a true joy as McPhee, a nanny/witch/wickedly wonderful woman. Every moment she is on screen you can just FEEL that the character is on a mission and will not back down. You can see her thinking and planning and scheming. You know that even when she seems to give in to the children, it’s merely a ploy to get them off guard for the nasty punishment on the way. For example, when the kids try to play sick with measles, she acts as compassionate and worried as the kids were hoping and even goes so far as to agree that they SHOULD stay in bed. The kids are all excited until they realize they CAN’T get out of bed. Her and her magics slowly change not only the children but their father who is so worried about keeping the family together he forgets that there is more to it than just simply keeping them all in the same house. She also affects the maid who believes she needs an education and all the trappings of status to get the attention of the man she loves when all she had to do was get his attention.
There are some disturbing images for the wee small kids (dead body since the dad is a mortician, subtle sex talk, nasty pranks and threatened cannibalism) but with good parenting, I think they could handle it. And if the kid is a brat, don’t take them!! Go see it yourself and try to see what can be applied at home! But for god’s sake don’t bring them so they can ruin the experience for everyone else!!

I was at Moving Out!! What were YOU doing?

Thanks to a friend of mine being well connected (look at me, I got connections!! Woo hoo!) I got to see the final performance of Moving Out at the T-U theatre. Not FINAL final performance, just the final in Jax, of course. Anyway, I was SUPPOSED to be joined at the intermission but an apparently BIG SNAFU occurred which left me with an empty seat next to me the whole night (sorry, Amy, I hope that doesn’t piss you off TOO much mwa ha ha ha ha ha!). This meant that Icouldn’t really question some of the stuff I was seeing and what it meant. Like watching hardcore anime the first time… some shit just don’t make sense, you know?
But I’m getting ahead of myself… let me back up.
When she first mentioned getting me into and told me it was a musical based on the music of Billy Joel, I was a bit hesitant but then she said the magic word* and I agreed. MY first thoughts was that if I was unlucky, it was going to be like Kids Incorporated where they just forced songs into a plot or on the really bad eps, they forced the plot into the songs. You remember, right? They would make the song “relevant” simply from ONE line or word in the song. Argh. But it was on when I got home from school so I watched it. Plus, Marteka was a cutie. Then I realized that if I was REALLY unlucky, it would be like Moulin Rouge. Shudder. Not that that movie was bad… it was half brilliance… the other half was just pure, unadulterated shite!! So I was trying to think of some way it could possibly be good and couldn’t think of anything so I actually got behind it at this point. Like a train wreck!! I just HAD to see this thing now!
It was neither of those things.
Now I almost wish it was. At least then I could easily complain.
See, Moving Out is a modern rock ballet with Billy Joel music and songs. That’s it. The stage is split into an upper rafters type set up with the rock band and “Piano Man” and the bottom, STAGE stage area is for the dancers. Sure, the band was talented and the Billy Joel stand-in was VERY competent and skilled. Sure, the dancers were all attractive and gifted dancers… ok, MOST of them were both those things, some were just one or the other. Sure they selected some nice BJ songs (River of Dreams, We Didn’t Start the Fire, Keeping the Faith, Angry Young Man, Moving Out, etc). I think I am just NOT the target audience for ballet.
I guess.
I just would’ve preferred a more traditional musical, I think. Where the songs were incorporated into the plot as best they could. To be honest, it’s not all that hard to figure out a plot that would work even with the songs they had. I did realize that it would be even EASIER with Huey Lewis and the News. Write that down. That’s MY idea but I wouldn’t mind someone else doing all the hard work. {:o)
“What WAS the plot?” I hear you all asking. Seems a bunch of friends are moving on with their lives… some are getting married, some breaking up, several are joining the military. This is all back in the sixties so, of course, they go to Vietnam. Since it’s a dramatic piece someone has to die and that’s where the thing gets dark. The death of one of the friends messes with the minds of the remaining few and they do their best to move on while falling further and further into drugs and the seedier side of life. In one of the more…. Interesting sequences, we witness the complete and total mental destruction of the main character as he basically gets high, hallucinates and feels incredible guilt while at the WORST place… surrounded by sexual depravity and drugs and all sorts of things. It really must’ve gone over well at the Sunday matinee. Strippers, sex, faking shooting up… you name it, someone was doing it.
Where was I? Oh, right. So we finally get these guys to all be in happy places and they come back together, forgive each other and move on.
Well, all except for the dead guy but he shows up at the curtain call so it’s all good.
I know a lot of people around me enjoyed themselves. I also know several didn’t quite get into it. It’s easy to appreciate the skill in the dancing… there were some really incredible performers. I wasn’t a fan of some of the moves and thought the dancers tended to be just sssssssslightly off beat for many songs (except the sex one, how odd) and that affected my enjoyment but I could still imagine what it would look like if they were dead solid perfect and, well, still would’ve been kind of meh. The story just seemed a bit too complex and if you DIDN’T read the plot synopsis in the book, you really would have absolutely no clue what was going on. Hell, even WITH that it still got muddied in spots.
It also suffers from one of my biggest complaints with musicals involving “tough guys”… gangs, bad asses, violent fuckers, whatever… see, it’s hard to accept them as REAL manly men when they keep doing the whole ballet thing all over the stage. Heck, one bit where we are supposed to be understanding how close the three male leads are, they are playing football in a park and punching each other and wrestling and all that stuff … nothing wrong there… but then they start actually LIFTING each other and at one point the soon-to-be dead one is picked up by his legs and spun… you see it in swing dancing between a man and a woman… but three guys? I think we ALL got an idea of how close these guys are, lemme tell you.
So it was an experience I am glad I had. (Thanks, Cathy!) I am very glad I got to go but at the same time… it really should have been called “Moving Out: A Billy Joel Cover Band and Interpretive Dancing Experience!”
Oh, and their version of We Didn’t Start the Fire was junk. The guy mispronounced WAY too many of the names. BUT, that being said, the signing interpreter was frickin’ AWESOME!! Anytime the show got dull, I could always look at the older one (there were two, one young and chubby, one old and skinny) and she would be boppin’ to the music and signing… looked like a beautiful dance. And I know they cramped up during Fire.
Anywho, if you get a chance to see it, DO go and make up your OWN mind.
My fave parts though were the band warming up to various NON-BJ songs and the fact that I see that Black Watch is coming to town. Ahem. Cathy? Can you help a brutha out? {:o}
Take it easy, everyone.

* The magic word for me, as most of my friends know, is “free”. I’ll do almost anything if it’s FREE!!

Underworld Evolution

UNDERWORLD EVOLUTION
The first Underworld was a fine movie... nothing special but had a lot of promise. It was introducing us to a world (that looked a lot like many other worlds :) ) and the characters and the politics and all that. It set up the rules. Vampires are VERY political and underhanded and betray each other at the drop of a hat but have a firm set of rules to live by. Werewolves/Lycans are wild beasties that are primitive and the former slaves of the vampires, even though they were created at the same time... as the legend says. Then there are humans who have no clue what's going on. Vampiures like to kill werewolves and the best of the death dealers is Selene. She wears black leather, looks great and has a corset over the leather suit for some reason. The guy she finds in the first one ends up becoming the first hybrid of the two species (three?) and becomes either more powerful or just as powerful as either half. Or sometimes LESS powerful as the scene dictates. The first ends with these two being branded as outcasts from the vampire and lycan clans and most of the ruling class of vampire destroyed except for one, Marcus.
The second movie picks up RIGHT where the first one ended. The cast is all back (except for Lucien, I think though it's hard to tell) and while you can see some of them aged poorly in the few years since the last one, it's STILL nice to have them back. A new faction is introduced which seems to be comprised of humans who go about cleaning up the messes and hiding the secret war. We also learn that Marcus was actually the FIRST vampire and his twin brother was the first Lycan as they are the two sons of legend. The rest of the story is about Selence and the Hybrid fighting the two Firsts.
There you go.
While the first Underworld was full of setting up the world, this one EXPANDS on it. Sometimes it gets tedious but more often than not it's just fun. It harkens back to Star Wars where everything Ben Kenobi told Luke in Ep IV became bullshit by Ep VI... well, BS from a "certain point of view". Same is true here. We learn that the same folks who discredited the legend as mere folk tale are actually firm believers in it all. Some of the betrayals were not actually betrayals and some were just political cover ups. While some may hope the movie will just go out and be balls to the wall vamp-wolf fights, I was hoping for just this sort of thing... PLOT DEVELOPMENT.
Not to say there aren't more fights... and better fights than the first one. They obviously have a budget for this one and it shows. Not all the effects are perfect but they DO tell the story. Plus, you get Beckinsale doing the "naked without showing shit" stuff and that got the guys in the crowd clapping. Seriously, one guy in the crowd clapped during the whole scene. The WHOLE THREE MINUTE SCENE!!
This wasn't the only cheering, either. The climax especially got the theatre applauding but part of me jsut thinks that it's been so long since any movie has actually HAD a climactic scene that people were just in awe of such a thing. (Remind me to write about that some other time.)
Is this one perfect? IS the acting better or the story fully coherent or the effects better than anything else out there? Nope. But it DOES come close to delivering on the promise of the first one. Do you NEED to see the first one? Not really. They fill you in pretty well along the way with flashbacks and such but it DOES help in understanding everythnig. Plus, it helps you enjoy the subtle bits and throwaway parts that only come from having seen the first one.
I like it. I had fun. I'll own it. I hope for a third... not the prequel, either... a third chapter in this story.

***cough***

I'm sick. VERY sick. Sore throat and achey head sick. I cancelled two nights of trivia sick. Miserable sick. So I won't be posting for a bit, ok? Well wishes are welcome!! But between health, losing money due to health, myspace friends disappearing on me, other 'real' friends doing the same and just a general blah feeling that comes from too many reruns on tv and nothing going on outside... sick sucks.
Granted, I have a LOT to look forward to NEXT week... so that's good. And I have some really great friends who have been very nice to me while I have been sick and hsowing they care.. thanks to you all for your kind words and deeds.
For everyone else... I hope you don't get sick!! Good god, I hope that.

Ok, serious question time...

Would vegetarians be upset by this whole thing?
http://eathufu.com/

Hostel and Hoodwinked

HOSTEL
Possible Spoilers
Ok, so THIS is how you make a horror movie! You take some kids, put them in a bad situation, show some nekkid womenses and get on with the gore!!
Ah, but this is ALSO how you do something just a little… different with the genre. Much like Final Destination, the “villain” is more a concept than an actual person. Sure, you have the people doing the killing but the “heroes” of the piece can’t tell who the bad guys even ARE. They are ordinary people who just have enough money to be able to buy people to torture. No hockey masks, knife fingers, human skin masks or Shatner heads in sight! Just some seriously twisted people who have WAY too much money and WAY too much free time. The film also does a serious No-No that anyone who watched the classics back in the 70’s and 80’s will know… you don’t get rid of the GOOD KID. Remember watching those old movies where you could easily pick who would survive? They were the ones who DIDN’T do the drugs or the sex (or if they did, felt bad about it) and were the goody two-shoes of the bunch. You don’t kill the goody two-shoes. You hurt them and chase them and get them all bloody, definitely, but you don’t KILL them.
Hostel doesn’t care about such things. Such rules. You’re even allowed to laugh AT the bad guys in it and are encouraged to root for their destruction. You WANT the kids to get the upper hand and kill the bad guys. The whole last twenty minutes of the flick are just some of the most uproarious fun you will have in almost ANY movie and it’s all about giving the film a “happy ending”.
Oh, wait… I forgot to really talk about the movie. Anyone remember Euro Trip? The one about the kids going to Europe to find the one guy’s net-girlfriend? They go to the one country where their last bit of money ends up being a HUGE amount due to the exchange rate? That SAME country is where Hostel takes place. But whereas in Eurotrip where the moral was “When in Amsterdam, go elsewhere to avoid non-pot filled brownies, bad sex and dull hostels”, the moral of Hostel is “When in Amsterdam, STAY THE HELL IN AMSTERDAM!!” The movie starts out with thirty minutes of sex and drugs and just a little hint of the violence to come. The second half hour has less nudity but a bit more implied violence and some shots of the AFTER effects of it. (You see the swing and all but not when the object hits skin but what marks are left afterwards, that sort of thing.) The last bit is all about the gore and the violence and the chase. I enjoyed it. My friend Jon was cheering and laughing and REALLY enjoying himself. My friend Dave was breaking into cold sweats trying not to throw up. But let’s just say Dave REALLY liked the first half hour a LOT.
So there you go… if you don’t like horror movies, don’t go. If you DO like them and are tired of this PG 13 crap we’ve been having WAY too much of lately, go see Hostel.

HOODWINKED
First off… this is NOT Shrek 2 ½. This is in the same vein with the poking fun at fairy tales and all but the talent behind isn’t as good. Not the writing or acting, that’s all fine. It’s the ANIMATION that truly is crap. Stuff on Saturday mornings is better than this. Jimmy Neutron had better animation. Which is a shame cause I do believe it had better CG, this thing could be HUGE.
It’s the “true” story of what happened to Lil Red Riding hood. Sort of. It’s ok for kids but they took that whole bit of putting in stuff for the parents to keep them from getting bored a bit too far. You have parodies of Fletch (down to the clothes he wore and the theme), XXX (down to the ski chase), Commercialism and commercials, ET, Disney tunes/movies, COPS and crime dramas and more. Most of these won’t really strike home for the “target audience” of lil kids. And I think half the parents in my audience didn’t realize they WERE making fun of those things at first. They didn’t know how to react but slowly got into the joke of it all. Like I said, I think if the animation was better… people would’ve been right THERE with the movie the whole time. Shame really. But it’s a fun flick… take the kids… or don’t. You’ll probably still enjoy the STORY.

PLEASE!!! I need SUPPORT!!

Tonight is the first nite for TEAM CROSSWORD at Bob Marlins out at the beach (www.bobmarlins.com). It starts at 7:30 and will probably run for almost 2 hours, depending on number of players. The prizes for the top three teams are $40, $20 and $10 (house cash). The game itself involves me giving out puzzles and reading off clues, playing songs, and then giving answers once done with each puzzle. Puzzles will be worth 2, 3, 4, and 5 points each. Will have a halftime jumble and a final spelling question to sort out the winners. It CAN be fun!! Depends on the crowd. And it is NOT “gay” as so many people have said.
This will be my first time hosting this type of game. Team TRIVIA I have down pat but this is something new. Sure, it has a trivia side to it but I will be busy focusing on all the different rules and such PLUS this being my first time at this location to relax TOO much. Maybe I should get drunk before I start, what do you think? Ok, maybe not.
Oh, and this is also my first nite using the PA system again. I haven’t used that since football season started because Calico Jack’s was the only place who wouldn’t place a line for me to use. I hate this thing. It’s big and bulky and just a pain in my ass. I’ll need to get there early just to figure out where I’m setting up!! ARGH!!
Anyone living out near the beaches who wants to come out and support me, though, will be warmly welcomed. Also, since I doubt I will want to keep this gig for long (just long enough to make some extra $), let me know if you’d like to host it. You just have to be able to be there every Wednesday by 7PM to set up and the game runs from 730-930. Pays $50 straight for about 2 ½ hours work. It’s a good deal… just too far for me. And we are TRYING to get a wire set so we won’t need the PA for too long.
But seriously… anyone who wants to come out and play… feel free!!

Ringer and Bloodrayne

Crappy weekend for movies but I used that time to get caught up. I hope to see Hostel tonite (anyone want to go?) and will write about it later.

Ringer
Saw this Friday when it had already been out for a week or more and it was PACKED. Sure, it was a tiny theatre but still... packed. Mostly with annoying people but they didn't interfere with the movie TOO much once it started.
For those who don't know about this movie, it's with Johnny Knoxville and Brian Cox (damn, whoever thought you'd ever read THOSE two names together?!?!) and is about the two of them rigging the Special Olympics by having Knoxville "pretend" to be mentally challenged/retarded. I believe this movie was supposed to come out last summer or something since I remember seeing the teaser trailer a LONG time ago. It was the one featuring Knoxville confessing to what he was doing and the priest kicking the crap out of him.
You read that plot summary and you would go into this expecting a truly offensive flick. And those who don't pay attention may hear it's from the people who did Something About Mary and Stuck On You and all that and thinkg it would be REALLY offensive. But it isn't. Those people forget that the Farrelly Brothers have an affection for the "mentally nad physically challenged" folks and tend to put at least one in every movie they do. As they've made more and more, they have gotten even larger roles. Yes, Mary's brother was just an actor but the others she helped were real people... including the guy the brother was based on. Ringer takes this to its ultimate conclusion. Besides Knoxville, Cox and one or two others, the major characters are all real people. Think of it like Jackie Chan doing his own stunts... just means he's doing the work. These guys are still acting (and I think one or two MAY have been actors but I am having trouble getting this confirmed). Regardless, they all play their 'parts' very well. There are characters and situations that require SOME measure of ability and they all perform admirably. NOt saying they deserve an oscar but hell... if Hoffman and Lewis and Penn can get nods and awards for PRETENDING, these guys should at least get acknowledged.
The humor never comes at THEIR expense. They do things that are funny but not becuase they are "retarded" but because they DO it. Stuff that would've gotten a laugh if ANYONE would've done it. And they are never portrayed as idiots. Only the NON-challenged people are set up as stupid. Beyond that, the movie is just about a man who was already a good man having to do a bad thing for a good reason and yet still learns something about himself. Granted, the change inhis character was simply reverting BACK to how he is at the beginning but it's still a fun ride. This is NOT a comedy like Me, Myself and Irene or Mary or Kingpins or anything. This is a more serious turn with just a lighthearted approach. Nothing TOO serious but nothing that would make you offended or upset, really. Unless you get mad at the use of the word "tard" or "retard" and don't take into account WHO is saying it and why.
It's a nice movie but I suggest renting it.

Bloodrayne
THIS is the reason I didn't see Hostel Saturday night. No one wants to see Hostel because it is a horror movie. WUSSIES!! Anywho, Kevin didn't want "gore" so he suggested Bloodrayne. I admit to being curious about it even though I had never played the videogame but after seeing how godawful bad it looked in the trailer, I had that "car accident" mentality take over. Could it POSSIBLY be THAT bad? I mean, Dungeons and Dragons bad? House of the Dead bad?? The director HAD to have learned SOMETHING about making movies by NOW right?
Nope.
Actually, it seems he has forgotten a lot. It's not JUST him. The direction sucks, certainly, but the writing is equally bad. The acting, what there was of it, amounted to little more than a couple doing their best english accent or crying on cue. The effects were decent with plenty of bloody wounds and decapitations and the like. But when you have Ben Kingsley in a movie with Michael Pare, Michael Madsen, Billy Zane and Meatloaf and he ISN'T the best actor in the bunch, something's WRONG!! This is Ben's beer money movie. Doing it for the paycheck.
Most of the actors seem to approach that way. Even the ones who should be thanking their stars they even got ASKED to do this piece of shit.
**cough**
Michael Pare
**cough**
Meatloaf did it for fun, obviously, and because his scene is mostly him surrounded byu nekkid women. Madsen did it so he could say he was in a fantasy piece set, I guess, in england since most people at least TRIED an english accent. Even Michelle Rodriguez (Resident Evil and Fast and the Furious) did one. Lokhann... the Terminatrix from T3... did one. She was Rayne so I guess she HAD to. But Madsen DIDN'T. WTF?!?!? Neither did his friend/partner. WTF!?!? Nor Billy Zane. Wait, I think he tried one. Michael Pare didn't, though, I don't think. It's so hard to remember.
OH, yeah... how bad was the writing? Most of the cringing can be laid at the feet of the actors but the writing... dear god. Here's a sample:
Man lays wounded and dying having escaped from an unexpected attack against their group by the bad guys. Michael Madsen and friends rush over to him.
Madsen: "What happened?"
Dying man: "We were attacked. They're all dead. ALL DEAD!"
Madsen: "Are there any survivors?"
THIS was the type of shit throughout but that one stuck with me.
The only good thing in it since the fights sucked (take time to train and work out some choreography people!! Keanu did it, for god's sake!!) and the blood effects got old after awhile... was the nudity. And, sorry, but there just wasn't enough of it to warrant paying money for this. Thankfully Kevin took me out for some drinks afterwards to pay me back for this.
Those of you who heard from me Saturday night around 130AM know how well it worked. Cause I sure as hell wasn't talking about THIS movie anymore. :)
Thanks, Kevin.

Sorry I couldn't have better reviews for you.

Run, Johnny, RUUUUUN!!!

My nephew, Johnny, crossing the line at the Gator Bowl 5K. He was 66 out of 1100. Pretty damn good.
And pretty damn SKINNY!!!
EAT SOMETHING, BOY!!

Act your age, mama, not your shoe size...

Kissing.
This came up while talking with someone who I've kissed. I've had this type of discussion in some form of another with just about every person I have ever kissed. Excluding family, of course. I was doing my usual "I'm bored, wanna make out" intro to various friends, several of whom the idea of making out is a known joke... even with those who I've made out with in the past. Anywho, a friend and former kiss partner asked if anyone had accepted. I had to say no with a sad face emoticon cause it was tragic.
Actually, tragic was twisting my damn knee getting out of the shower while getting ready to go out but that's not the point of this blog.
She said that was too bad and " If I was single I'd make out with you in a heartbeat! You're a great kisser!" I graciously accepted her compliment with a thanks and said she wasn't too bad either. Now before you get all uppity about that, let me 'splain sumpin to chu.
This particular person, through no fault of her own, falls into a certain category of kissers. The wide open mouth kisser (WOMK). Nothing wrong with it, necessarily, but see, I can't open my mouth that wide. And nowhere NEAR as wide as SHE can. So, at first, I would get worried about her swallowing my face. And I DID already say all this to her directly so don't worry about her reading this. She was one of the few WOMKs that I actually enjoyed. Normally, these women (or guys, i assume) can't adjust their styles to accomodate other people. They come at you like fucking bass and ALWAYS come at you like bass. She did alter her technique. WOMK does have its place in the good ol hot 'n heavy but when it's the first kiss or simply an intimate moment (pre-foreplay), then I find it a bit offputting. Almost a complete turn off.
So while talking to her about it and remembering the conversation we had about it many moons ago... back when we still kissed... I started thinking about other styles of kissing. I am sure this is not complete so any input or categories you want to add... feel free.
1) WOMK. Already discussed.
2) Pressure Kisser. Tightly pursed lips. Lots of neck pressure. I worry for my dental work and fear she will undo all the success I had with braces as a child.
3) Blob. The opposite of 2. The lips are SO relaxed that it almsot seems like you need to get a bucket to hold them in so you don't lose any of them. These and the WOMK are the ones that usually have the most teeth strikes during a kiss. This is NOT "fat chicks"... weight has nothing to do with ANY of these kisses.
4) Mouse Trap. This is where the chick comes in with lips pressed tight and you almost feel like she's trying to shove her lips thru your teeth and suddenly SNAP, she opens her mouth for some frenching. Always reminded me of a mousetrap.
5) Quicksand. Like 4 is to 2, 5 is to 3. Soft, gooey lips and suddenly it opens up and you fall into it. Like quicksand. There is already not enough support in the kiss so having a gaping hole open up gives me vertigo.
6) The Biter. Lips. Tongue. Neck. Nose. Forehead. You name it, it gets bit. I almost hesitate to list this under kissing since there isn't much kissing going on.
7) The Planner. Every kiss is precise in movements and length. It feels like a dance sequence or a fight scene it's so choreographed. Whether it is from just thinking ahead or from experience, it just comes off as unemotional. That is just not the feeling you want to have when you are trying to unhook her bra thru her jacket.
8) The Passive Aggressor. She waits for the kiss and expects YOU to do all the work but lets you know if you make a mistake. IF you move down to the neck to soon, she pulls your head back up. If you stop with the tongue, she uses hers to knock on your lips and ask it to come out and play. Nothing major, no yelling or evil eyes... just subtle clues that you messed up somewhere and need to get it right. But at least she's communicating!!!!
9) Impatient. DO IT NOW!! GIVE ME THAT KISS!! NOW OVER THERE!! KISS MY NECK!! NOW MY CHEST!! GET YOUR PANTS OFF!! GO HOME! LEAVE THE MONEY ON THE DRESSER!
10) The Joker. Likes to be playful and will giggle a lot. Might blow into your mouth or pull on yuor lip or tongue. MAy give your belly a raspberry or tickle your neck. Only serious in kissing during sex. But not ALWAYS serious in kissing during sex.
11) ADHD. Can't stay focused and moves around so much YOU start to have trouble focusing. I blame MTV.
12) YOU tell ME. What should 12 (13, 14, etc) be?

Please don't think I am criticizing. Everyone has their own styles and it's fun to learn them. I've joked a bit about it all but I really do like kissing. Kissing is great fun and with the right person is an amazing way to spend an evening. Most people will go from one type to another but some...some just stick with one. Change it up... see what your partner enjoys... learn each other!! Kissing gets even BETTER that way. And apparently, I'm a really good kisser. Or great, depending on who you talk to.
Oh yeah... almost forgot. What is MY style, anyway? Oh it's simple... it's....................
Whoops... gotta go.
TTYL.

Well, hot damn!! Have you heard?

I was wondering when this would happen. After so many late nights worrying I can now rest easy.
Yep, they did it:

Researchers discover largest prime number

Wednesday, January 4, 2006; Posted: 11:35 a.m. EST (16:35 GMT)

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (AP) -- Researchers at a Missouri university have identified the largest known prime number, officials said Tuesday.

The team at Central Missouri State University, led by associate dean Steven Boone and mathematics professor Curtis Cooper, found it in mid-December after programming 700 computers years ago.

A prime number is a positive number divisible by only itself and 1 -- 2, 3, 5, 7 and so on.

The number that the team found is 9.1 million digits long. It is a Mersenne prime known as M30402457 -- that's 2 to the 30,402,457th power minus 1.

Mersenne primes are a special category expressed as 2 to the "p" power minus 1, in which "p" also is a prime number.

"We're super excited," said Boone, a chemistry professor. "We've been looking for such a number for a long time."

The discovery is affiliated with the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search, a global contest using volunteers who run software that searches for the largest Mersenne prime.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

New Years Eve (In Technicolor Yawn!)

The night started at Carabbas Italian Grill simply because Kevin wanted it and I wanted to use my gift cards which were good at several locations including Carabbas. But of course, showing up around 720PM on NYE meant a 45 minute wait. So Kev and I went to the bar with the buzzer for a table in hand and ordered a drink. I'm not a skilled bar vulture but Kev has it down PAT. He kept his eyes darting about, all the while maintaining the conversation, and as soon as a group started to get up from a table, he struck! I didn't realize the tables around the bar were all first come, first served... I thought tables were tables and sitting AT the bar was sitting at the bar. I have a lot to learn, obviously.

We sat, we ordered, we had decent service. The food was adequate. It ceratinly wasn't worth the promotion Kev was doing for the place but it WAS food and we needed food, what, with our planned SERIOUS DRINKING!! We ate, we drank a couple of beers and talked. We bullshitted about quite a bit and finally realized it was time to head to Bourbon Street.

I know friends of mine were going all OVER the place for fun and excitement. I have done the Landing thing before. I've been down the RiverWalk. I've gone out to the beaches area. I've done the stay at home and go to a person's party thing, too. Bonfire? Check. Bourbon Street was the first place I wanted to do AGAIN. It fits well with a group since there is a variety to choose from and yet, you won't lose the others. Different music and decent bars. But the key to it all.. the PEOPLE. I LOVE to people watch. I find it fascinating. I also enjoy socializing, believe it or not. I like talking to people when I get into that party mood. And I will talk to just about anyone. Some people look at me funny for striking up a conversation with them (or trying to, anyway) and others enjoy it just as much as I. I'm good either way.

So we of course ended up in Crazyhorse. See, Kev is a late in life country convert. I grew up with country so I can apprecaite it and don't hate it. I like a lot of different types of music and am comfy in any of the bars and would continue to tour them throughout the night. Kev likes him a country bar!! And just like a late in life christian convert, he gets REALLY excited about it. You can see him relax when he enters it compared to the other places. The only one to come close is the 80's bar. Anywho, we find a spot on the rail around the dance floor after getting a couple of beers and we relax to let our dinner settle. Wasn't hard to find a spot since the crowd had only recently started coming in. Hell, Mardi Gras wasn't even open yet! (We also had a kickass parking space, btw.) We get drinks, we talk to the one roaming waitress, we look around at all the lovely ladies and even the not so lovely ones. We watch the line dancing and comment. We watch the two steppers and comment. I check my messages several times to learn who is and isn't coming and when/why.

Then Kevin starts to look a bit... off. Seems dinner ain't sitting too well. He goes off to the restroom and returns, no better. We try a few remedies that usually work to no avail. He gets a water.

Yes, that's right.

Kevin is drinking WATER in a BAR while WILLIAM is drinking beer after beer.

Quick, someone tell me the temperature in hell.

Anywho, he obviously ain't getting better and it's only about 11pm. He is trying to tough it out. I get the call that Jessica is in line and almost to the door so I go to meet up with her since she had never been to Bourbon and it was easier than trying to explain how to find us. Kevin says he'll be fine, even suggested I go get her, so I didn't think anything of it.

While I stand out there waiting, I get a call from an unknown number (shut up, I deleted it months ago and you knew that!!) and it's a voice telling me to turn around. So I do. And the voice says no, keep turning. So I do. No, back the other way. I do and see no one. Finally it tells me "THE BLUE ROOM!" so I head into that and see a shape that looks familiar. Apparently, she didn't realize how DARK it was in there... especially when out in the bright lights of the main hallway. Anywho, Johanna said hey and told me she was ALSO waiting on the rest of her group...a bunch of young uns (one under 21) and we parted so I could get out to the main hall. Jessica said she was to the door so it wouldn't be long. Johanna came out to meet up with her friends and again, we parted ways. I took Jessica back to show her where Kev was.

Kev still looked like crap but after getting a beer for Jess, we talked a bit. I offered to give her the tour and, again, we left Kevin to his own devices. I figured this way he could do whatever he needed to do without worrying about US. When we got back, though, he was clearly in dire straits and ready to leave. He tried to stick out and he's a trooper but even I know that once there is a vomit episode, the night is over. He went ome, safely, and toughed out the rest of the night. I hope he's feeling better and we are supposed to get together for a belated NYE celebration!! So if you're out and about and hear two guys hsouting out "HAPPY NEW YEAR" within the next couple of weeks, please ignore us. Better yet, JOIN IN!!

So it's just me and Jessica hanging out. Well, sort of. See, I had made some new friends. I was having a blast talking to this one woman, Jennifer, and a lesser blast talking with her friends, Julie and Robbie. They were line dancing FOOLS. Even did some decent two steppin!! Sadly, when it comes to organized dancing, I am an amateur but I am willing to learn. Just need a partner willing to show me or learn WITH me. ell, Jessica even went out to do the Electric Slide. I haven;t done that since the first and only time I did it. Remind me someday to tell you THAT tale. I enjoy watching dancing and I enjoy music and I enjoy moving to the music, especially with a partner. But enough about that.

Jess and I decided to check out the other bars again to see what had changed. This was after the midnight balloon drop and everything so some people had left. We went and hung out in the blue room with Jo and her friends. Decent folk: a midget, a young woman in a delusional marriage and another friend with glowing fingernails. Some decent conversation was shared and we even moved over to the 80's room in time for Thriller!! :) Amazingly, the YOUNG ones knew the dance better than those of us who remember when the video premiered on MTV. WTF?!?!? But, alas, Jo had to leave with her friends. Apparently it was passed their bedtime.

Jess and I continued to move about and enjoying the sights. We went back to the country bar so I could talk some more with Jennifer. I tried to get her or her short friend, Julie, to ride the bull but they refused. This did not sit well with me so I asked Robbie to go ride it... even offered to pay. He agreed and I even threw in an extra five ucks to get him a picture of it. After getting so completely wasted that I was amazing myself with the fact that I was coherent and able to move rather well... that's a first. Usually it's the body that goes first for me and my mind is left wondering why I can't walk without swaying. Anywho, I give them the picture and wlak off to go find Jessica again. She had walked off to pay her tab, I think.

We decided to leave when they started kicking everyone out and I realized on the way that I had completely fucked up. I never got Jennifer's phone number!! DAMMIT!! Why do I DO that? So now Jessica has witnessed me missing that one final part at elast twice. Probably more. Still not good at "closing the deal" or whatever they call it.

Damn.

Damn damn.

What makes it worse... on the way to the car... she parked about a half mile away... we PASSED Jennifer and her friends in their car and she said thanks for the bullride. So what do I do? "You're welcome" and turn back to walking to the car. THEN I turn to Jess to point out I was stupid again.

But all in all, I had fun. Would've been better with Kevin along for the ride. Would've been better with a phone number at the end of the evening. Hell, would've been better if a lot of things happened.

But I didn't get sick.

I didn't get in trouble.

I didn't get hurt.

Nor did any of my friends.

I am safe and sound and at home as we 'speak' and will be going to bed shortly to finish my recovery.

We should do this more often.

Who wants to meet up for a drink?