Brian and I watched the 2015 version of this movie last night. We both thought it was hilarious, which might tell you more about us than you need to know. I wouldn’t say it holds a candle to the original movies (at least the first few of them), though–the humor was definitely not of the same style. But, it was way funnier than most comedies out there today. It was pretty much rapid-fire jokes throughout.
My rating: 3.5/5
Stephen King rarely disappoints and this was not one of those times that he did. This was a collection of his short stories. The only negative here was that there were a few previously published stories in the book. But, there were also quite a few goodies in there. Reading his stuff is like sitting down with an old friend.
My rating; 3.5/5
This was an Austrian horror film. Europeans do horror very differently than Americans (see Martyrs). While this film wasn’t a 90 minute torture fest (it was only a 30 minute one), it definitely wasn’t like any American horror film that you might see. I thought the premise was pretty good–though I figured out the twist way, way early (I think I’ve watched too many movies/too much television at this point to be surprised by anything).
My rating; 3.5/5
Early last week, we discovered that the toilet in our basement was clogged in a major way (using a plunger on it caused water to shoot out the base). We weren’t too concerned because we have other toilets and our main sewer line was still working, so it appeared that the problem was contained. A few days later, Brian removed the toilet so he could check out the sewer pipe and found that it was clogged beyond his plumbing abilities.
This week, he called one of the plumbers we deal with and he recommended calling Roto-Rooter. Evidently they are best equipped to deal with situations such as this. They came today and 2 hours (and $200) later everything is working again. Apparently the pipes had a bunch of roots in them. Why the rest of our plumbing still worked is somewhat of a mystery (there must be two separate lines that connect to the main line), but I’ll take it. Luckily for us, they are testing the sewer lines in the township and we will almost certainly be required to replace ours, so this problem will not be a recurring one once that happens.
I’m a little behind on Christmas this year, but I’m glad to say that I’m done with shopping. I did 90% of it on Black Friday (from the comfort of my living room, thanks to Amazon). But, in an uncharacteristic move, my Christmas cards aren’t done yet. I briefly considered not making cards this year, but then someone told me how much they like my cards so I was kind of guilted into it. They are in progress.
I’m not making cookies again this year, but Jake and I are going to make some Christmas-y treats next weekend. I’m not sure at this point if I’m going to be making dog treats. I didn’t last year and that was kind of nice, but I haven’t made treats in a while, so it might be fun to do. We’ll see how I’m doing for time.
We never decorate the house until mid-December, so I’m not behind on that yet. I think we’re going to get a real tree this year. We’ve been putting up an artificial one for quite a few years and I miss having a real one (or do I? I guess we’ll find out). The fact that real trees drop needles is kind of annoying, but our artificial one does that, too, so we’ll see which one I like better.
I’m taking a half day later this month to wrap presents–that’s probably my favorite Christmas preparation of all.