Settling into Prolonged Vagabondage

I'll thank you to keep your mind out of the gutter. This has nothing to do with S&M, although you could assume, quite rightly, that I do derive some sort of pleasure from forcing myself to live a nomadic existence (the masochism), and also derive pleasure from forcing my presence on friends who may or may not be sick of me (the sadism).

Sunday, after housesitting for the chicas, I cooked them chicken paprikash that I stewed for about three hours, and some dumplings that didn't turn out quite well, along with cucumber and tomato salad that my grandma makes, with a twist...fresh mozzarella. (On a Judge Ito sidebar, we've been watching a lot of Food Network, and don't you think Mario Batali needs a queer makeover? I mean he's a great chef, and people think I am annoyed by him because he's fat, but that's not the case. I'm no weightist. I'm annoyed because he's a slob. Get rid of the pony tail and get rid of those short pants, hippie. Plus, he's obviously my favorite Food Network all-star, so take that.)

--DON'T SEE CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY--
I don't know why anyone is treating this movie as anything more than a shitty remake of the 1971 original. It's as if Gene Wilder and everyone else from that superb movie is the elephant in the room that can barely be mentioned in any review. In short, there was no reason to make this movie. They would have you believe that it's more faithful to the book, but at heart, that's not enough. It's still the same movie as the original, done on a more annoying scale. Johnny Depp is absolutely unbearable. The entire time all you can think about is Gene Wilder and how much better it would be if they resurrected him from retirement to restar in a remake of his old movie. If that sounds masturbatory to any of you, maybe you should see this movie just to see how bad Depp is in it. That said, the beginning of the movie is pretty great. The Charlie is better, and very sweet, but once they enter the chocolate factory, the movie goes to shit, and that's not how it's supposed to be. The songs are terrible, and they are what really gave the factory magic in the original. Pure Imagination, the Grandpa Joe song, the Oompa Loompah songs which are infinitely better than the ones here are sorely missing, and it just seems like a CGI fest. And has no one noticed that for all the vision of Tim Burton, the main room of the factory looks almost exactly like the one in the 1971 version. Ok, I'm gonna back off now because I'm getting too worked up.

This weekend I saw Ada from Madrid. It was awesome. We went to the People's because the Cantab was charging cover...I hate cover. As Huey says, it's wholly undemocratic. After, we went to the Kong and shared what was my first scorpion bowl. It was heavy on the ice and Schnocone stealthily snatched up all the plastic playthings.

My job continues to trail along, but it's only a matter of time before it ends. That said, I return to the Region on August 18 which is almost exactly one month from today.