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I’ve grown weary of the nicknames I use for my family on this blog.   I was feeling woefully uncreative when I first started writing here and couldn’t be bothered to come up with anything fun for N and AE. Then Miss T came along and I copped out with her, too.  I don’t use real names for reasons of googleability (it is totally a word!) but I’m no longer terribly concerned with total anonymity.  Anyone with the proper motivation and a few minutes could figure out who I am through N’s blog.  And probably no one actually cares, but I still don’t want real names floating around out there.  But I also don’t want boring initials anymore!  I need something more interesting, just to amuse me if nothing else.

So.  From now on, I’ll refer to AE as Lex.  It’s a shortened version of his real name, but not what we actually call him.  I could go with Xander, I suppose, but he’d appreciate the comic book/video game/movie connection of Lex.  So Lex it shall be.

And Miss T shall now be Misty.  (See what I did there?  Am so clever, yes?)  Essentially that’s how I see it in my mind when I’m writing about her anyway, so there you go.  It isn’t anything close to her real name unless you count the fact that it also has five letters and contains T and S.  Heh.

And what about N, you ask?  That’s a very good question.  Many of the four readers that I have know his real name already.  It is out there on the internet anyway due to the nature of his job.  I could call him by his real name, but will not.  I shall call him Nic, for no other reason than it annoys the living hell out of him.

There you have it.  To sum up, Lex = AE, Misty = Miss T, and Nic = N.

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Yesterday I went for my Free! Lasik! Consult! as touted by a Houston-based doctor that comes to my city once a week.  I’ve been thinking about lasik (LASIK? Lasik? oh who cares) for a while, and if I’m serious about getting into any sort of law enforcement – federal or otherwise – it’s pretty much a must.  My vision uncorrected is something god-awful like 20/400.  I can’t even see the big E without my glasses or contacts, and most law enforcement agencies won’t consider anyone with uncorrected vision worse than 20/100 for a field position.

Anyway, yesterday I went for an evaluation and within 45 minutes I was signed up for the procedure.  August 18, yo.  Supposedly after resting my eyes that afternoon, I’ll be able to drive myself to the follow-up appointment the next morning, totally corrective-aid free.  I find this hard to believe, but it sounds awesome.  And only possible through magic.  Certainly it will not involve lasers aimed at my eyeballs, because that is horrific and scary and shudder-inducing.

Denial.  It ain’t just a river in Egypt, people.

*

Nic (man, even I hate the way that looks but I will persist) and I found ourselves sans kids last week (they were both out of town visiting grandparents) and we hardly knew what to do with ourselves in the evenings.  We muddled through, going out to dinner several times and even squeezing in a movie – Horrible Bosses.

I highly recommend this movie, you guys.  If you’ve ever had a boss that you’ve hated even a little (and if you say you haven’t, I say you’re lying), this is the movie for you.  Office Space is another movie I recommend for disgruntled employees, but it’s more applicable for corporate drones stuck in a cubicle farm.  Horrible Bosses appeals to a much wider audience.  Almost everyone has a boss, and very few people adore theirs.

Jason Bateman is awesome as always and perfect in his role as the voice of reason.  It reminded me of his character in Arrested Development (another must-see) – the long-suffering normal person who inevitably finds himself in the midst of crazy people.  And I really don’t care for It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (no link, just because) but Charlie Day was really funny and charming in a pathetic sort of way.  I didn’t think Jason Sudeikis was quite as good as the other two (probably because I’m never fond of the overgrown frat boy character), but every movie has to have a weak link and he did have some good lines.

The three bosses were cast perfectly as well.  Kevin Spacey was doing his standard thing, Jennifer Aniston was really vamping it up (her eye makeup was over-the-top and so not HER but it worked), and Colin Farrell does obnoxious and disgusting oh so very well.

The language is foul but the one-liners are great.  The theater was full and everyone laughed out loud throughout the entire movie.  There were none of the plot holes that I tend to expect in comedies – usually the writers are so focused on the jokes they tend to lose sight of the story, but not here.  And added bonus for me, the Old Lady Moviegoer that I am: only one scene made me cringe a little with crude “toilet humor”.  If (WHEN) you see it, you will know exactly what I mean and it really isn’t terrible at all, especially as compared to other “comedies” these days.  (OMG, Grandma?  Is that you?)

Horrible Bosses really isn’t anything you need to see on the big screen, of course.  Nic and I usually reserve that for blockbuster-type action movies that have impressive special effects, but since we had the opportunity (and I’d already seen Green Lantern which I’ll review some other time) we went for it.  Totally, totally worth the expense of the tickets and giant vat of Coke that Nic requires for any movie viewing – and I’ll definitely buy the DVD (or Blu-ray, I guess) whenever it comes out.  Two enthusiastic thumbs up:  one for me, and one for my movie reviewer by proxy.

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