And The Gods Smiled Down Upon Us...

Thank HEAVENS for an excuse to prop open the door and get some fresh air into this place!  After several months of breathing stale recycled air that would make the residents of "Mars Colony" gag, I awoke this morning to  temps hovering at 59 degrees!  WOOF!  Slapped on a pullover, took the bundled kids to school then gleefully put the old chiseled cinder block (the one Kaleb shaped into a heart) against the door!  As we speak I am enjoying a constant, slow wafting of fresh, COOL air!

HOO-RAY!  And better still, for the next week at least, the weather forecast is for cloudless skies with temps in the 60-70's!!!!  Hopefully I can have my upgraded "Greedo" Schwinn ready to go and actually have NO excuse NOT to go on some descent rides! 

Got some more goodies in yesterday, one in trade and a couple pick ups.  The slick black 7 speed Comfort cruiser went to a new home whom I HOPE appreciates the good fathers generosity.  The young man has proven to be a wee bit harsh on his rides but then what thirteen year old is EVER easy on their bike!  He'd outgrown (and outdone) the little Mongoose BMX (believe me, this trade needed ALLOT of TLC) so his Dad upgraded him.  He is truly a much more kind spirited father then I could bring myself to be!  Whenever the boys kill their bikes I remind them they know how to turn a wrench, and can work off the parts!

SPEAKING of the boys!  Our Boy. Elijah finally got his first paycheck in on Tuesday and as predicted, much to the contrary of Mom and Dad's advice, he has very little of it left!  We attempted to advice him to SAVE his money until he got steady work again but, like so often in the past, his disregard for reason shone through!  After paying us back the money he had borrowed he asked if I would mind if he went and got a cell phone.  Of course he laced his decision to get one with the rationale that it would make finding another job easier, and allow him to be in better contact with his parents should he ever have to babysit the kids, in case of emergency (apparently forgetting that there IS a house phone available)  After securing my waders and standing atop a chair to avoiding stepping in the flood of bovine droppings he was spreading, I reaffirmed my opinion that he should SAVE his money.  But, as I have vowed to myself AND his mother, I would not TELL him what to do with the money HE earned.  He is a big boy, almost of legal "we no longer have to pay your way" age and he NEEDS to learn how to handle his responsibilities.

Of course, he took this to mean "SURE!  Go buy the most EXPENSIVE, cool, laden with gizmo phones you can find!"

OY!

Of course, as I soon discovered, he never mentioned any of this to his Mother!  Leaving me, of course with the thankless task of telling her.

 So I TEXT her!  Much to her credit there was no yelling or "Mommy Language" involved.  Apparently, unbeknownst to me, she has embraced the "It's his life" ideology!

After returning to the shop he set about exploring his new gadget.  When pressed for information regarding it's cost, he skated the question with answers like "It wasn't THAT expensive" or "well there were phones that cost more".  These kind of responses send up blaring red flags!  Finally acquiescing he stated, in a timid voice, the true cost.

I visibly gagged on a short, high pitched stream of expletive deletives.

Needless to say, the only question I could summon the restraint to express was "Now HOW are you going to pay next months PHONE BILL!?"  Not to mention the blaring incredulity as to WHY he would choose such a dainty, stream line touch screen WITH NO CASE when his job is on a CONSTRUCTION SITE!  I mean, I have been on sites for years and can't recall HOW MANY cell phones I have shattered, broke or dropped in a pail of water!  Even ones as strong as Motorola's!  He had no answer for any of these inquiries.

I hung my head, slowly shaking from side to side, in despair for his future.  BUT, he is going to have to learn on his own.  Not that he will ever admit to being wrong, mind you!

ANYWHO!

After yesterdays repairs, we managed to put out one new goody!  This one is a super cool classic Dyno Zone BMX!  Also have the Trek 1000 BACK!  AGAIN!  No, there is absolutely nothing wrong with this ride, the last gentleman to buy it, did so impulsively.  Only after riding it for a few miles realized that the hunkered down profile was painful to his recent hip surgery.  SO, to all the folks pining over the ride, IT'S BACK!

Now, on to movies!

Yep, hit Redbox on the way home, as a movie I have been waiting to view finally came in!  "Dead in Tombstone"

Oft times I have lamented over the western movie.  Truthfully, there has not been one I have truly enjoyed since 1979, "The Frisco Kid" with Gene Wilder and Harrison Ford.  But when I saw the previews for Tombstone, I was intrigued, for nothing else then the fact that it was a Danny Trejo film.  Now it's not for what you think.  I am not a big glory hound for heavily violent films that Danny is known for, although I am prone to watch.  But Danny has a way about him I find intriguing. A powerful presence he brings to every film he has been in.   He has to be one of the toughest, meanest looking characters in Hollywood today, perhaps that accounts for him appearing in over 200 movies.  And he is almost 70 years old!  But behind that face there is something akin to an Omnipresent Uncle.  A man that would stand strong at the back of a family gathering, deserving of a great deal of respect.  Someone you could feel assured in as a mentor.  So it is with great sadness I have to lament this latest film.  The actors in the film cannot be blamed for it's lack of appeal.  Anthony Michael Hall plays the bad guy, although stereotypical, very methodical.  Mickey Rourke is entertaining as the Devil and Dina Meyer portrays the vengeful sheriffs widow with grace.  Danny, as always fills the screen.  But it's the pacing and the directors incessant need to overdo the spaghetti western clichés.  Putting an over reliance on the almost perpetual slow motion  and odd camera angels that wears thin within the first half of the film.  Not to mention the frenetic action sequences in poor lighting that became grating.  At some moments with so much going on in particular scenes, and the dull colors of period dress and sets I had a difficult time determining who in fact the characters were!  "Yay!  He got 'em! OH Wait!  That was one of the good guys!"

Danny's character, double crossed by his gang by his half brother (Anthony) is shot by all his gang after a successful bank heist as Anthony has made a deal to take over a newly gold rich town, sending Danny to Hell.  While at that balmy vacation spot, Danny meets Satan (Rourke) who tells him he feeds on evil men's souls.  Danny, not wanting to miss an opportunity, makes a deal with the Devil to send him back, so he can dispatch the souls of his traitorous gang in exchange for his own life.   Revenge ensues.  Mind you, this ain't no Crow movie!  Danny goes back fully mortal.  But then it just gets silly.  Danny has 24 hours to dispatch six men.  But spends more time monologuing, lamenting his predicament, sitting in church and eventually the salon, waiting for the bad guys to come to him.  For some unknown reason he's running out the clock.  Then when they DO show up he sits at the bar giving them the time to set up two Gatling guns outside the saloon.  Then we go through the long drawn out dramatic reveal of who he is, the bad guys disbelief, then he inadvertently gives them the opportunity to seek shelter, get outside and start shooting up the place! 

Yes, it goes on like this throughout the movie, as he slowly picks them off, one by one.  And even though Danny sets up six empty coffins in the towns courtyard in front of the church and slowly starts filling them with the corpses of his victims, the bad guys don't have enough snap to grab the gold and get out of Dodge!  No, worse yet, they go to the mine to get MORE gold...then come back to the town!  All this culminates in a two minutes before midnight showdown in the center of town between Danny and Micheal, attended by all the townsfolk AND the Devil, who willfully redirects all the fired ammunition around their intended targets, forcing the two combatants to "duke it out" to the death! 

All that being said, in spite of it's plot line faults, there is enough grit and faithful portrayal of the time period, mingled with some stylish celluloid moments coupled with some decent method acting that makes this worth a "one time" look.  I give it five out of ten.

ALRIGHT! 

I leave you with yesterdays newbie, and now I'm off!  Don't let this day slip away folks! 

GET OUT AND RIDE!