this post’s hidden theme: dirt

tuesday last week i went to lunch by myself. i went to brasil. it was the first time i’d been there for lunch in some time. i was on my motorcycle. on the way back from lunch, somewhere on 288 something managed to fly through/around my goggles and hit my left eye. it hurt when it hit and it hurt to blink. i had no choice but to keep going since i was in the middle of traffic. when i got to work i looked at my eye in one of the mirrors on my bike, but i couldn’t see anything. same thing once i got in the building. after a few hours of it still hurting when i blinked and me trying to find/remove whatever might be there, i decided maybe it’d scratched my cornea and i should see an optometrist. i called and made an appointment before they closed, then left work a bit early and went. he irrigated my eye and checked things out. he said i had some small scratches, so he gave me some antibiotic/anti-inflammatory drops. i was glad it wasn’t anything worse. my eye as of the last day or two seems to be pretty much back to normal.
last tuesday night i watched a 99 cent itunes rental: happy campers. it’s about a group of camp counselors and their goings on at a summer camp. it sort of plays like it could have been cool, but unfortunately it comes up very, very short. there is a lot of moral ambiguity, and a lot of complexity, and some darkness, and things are “learned” i suppose — but it’s couched in so much slapstick and goofiness, and perhaps is too unfocused or has too many irons in the fire, that it doesn’t come across as dark or complex as much as shallow and silly and you just don’t really care about the characters. (except maybe pixel. but that’s because i’m screwed up. 🙂 when i was watching it i kept thinking “it’s got the possibility to be a great, extremely dark comedy like heathers, but it falls so short.” interestingly enough, and unknown to me at the time, this was the directorial debut of daniel waters…who wrote the heathers screenplay (and also wrote this one).
thursday i called the auto shop to ask about the lifters from edelbrock. they said they’d had them for a few weeks. *sigh* i them i’d drop it off monday.
thursday night i watched zach galifianakis: live on netflix streaming. zach’s humour is odd, groan-inducing, and much of the time awkward and stilted…but man, is he funny.
friday during the day we suddenly had a major saturday dr test that had been in the works for months cancelled. someone higher up complained at the last minute i guess. it seems kind of stupid since it’d been on the calendar for a long time, and i’m not sure the testing would have affected anything related to this person anyway. whatever. it’s kind of annoying to be all geared up and prepared to do some work in uncharted territory, then have the plug pulled at the last second. it also meant my saturday was suddenly free.
friday night i came home and didn’t see any interesting live music shows going on, so i stayed at home and watched a 99 cent itunes rental: rescue dawn. it’s based on the true story of dieter dengler, a german-american u.s. pilot who got shot down during a bombing run over laos before the u.s. was supposed to be involved there (pre-vietnam war). he got captured and spent months in a prison camp. eventually he planned an escape, and somehow made it far enough to get rescued. christian bale plays the main character, and it was directed by werner herzog. it plays a bit slow, and doesn’t feel like it tries to pump drama like a lot of movies — but i thought that made it feel more realistic and true, and i really liked the style.
of course, i didn’t really take advantage of the open saturday. i’d thought about going on a motorcycle rally ride, but it got canceled due to the major weather going through most of Texas. (it was a ride to san antonio and then to kinky friedman’s utopia animal shelter.) so instead i just took my bike to a fundraiser wash brad was doing for his youth group. i’d been waiting to wash it due to the weather being colder, so i was happy it was going to finally be all cleaned up. but i learned there was stuff all over the bike that couldn’t be washed off. grr. a while back late at night i’d had to drive through some liquid running across the highway where they were doing some work. it was a tan/grey liquid, and it looked like they were cutting the concrete. well, evidently whatever that tan/grey stuff is, it stuck to my paint, my chrome…pretty much everything. i’m hoping maybe some tar remover will clean it off, but i don’t know yet.
remember me replacing raj’s busted washer with mine? well, now my washer isn’t working right. it does everything okay except it won’t do the spin cycle at all. i spent a couple of hours sunday pulling it apart, removing the motor, taking off the clutch assembly (and breaking one of the stupid pad support prongs), testing the motor, etc. i’m not sure what the problem is, but i cleaned up the clutch assembly and if i can fix the pad support (jb weld?) i’ll see if cleaning the clutch assembly fixed it. otherwise it’s either the motor burning out (in tests it still works during the spin cycle with no load) or the motor-to-basket transmission seizing. in either case, i think it’d cost so much to get replacement parts it’d be more cost effective to just ditch it and buy a new one with a warranty.
sunday night i watched extreme engineering: offshore oil via netflix streaming. it’s a documentary about a company in mississippi that is building a “jack-up rig” for the gulf of mexico. while it talks about deep water offshore drilling rigs, how they work, how they’re set up and moved and such, most of it deals with some of the process the company was going through in the process of building out one of these while the film crew was there. it was interesting to find out more about how they do this stuff.
monday i took off work in the afternoon and dropped off the belair at the shop. jack and the kids went up with me and gave me a ride back to my house. we stopped and at saltgrass steakhouse on the way back.
monday night i watched the 99 cent itunes rental bad lieutenant. i’d seen it a few years ago and didn’t see what the fascination people seem to have with it. i thought perhaps a few years’ time might change my perspective of it. nope. it’s not that it’s bad or anything, i just don’t find it deserving of a lot of praise. it doesn’t move me. and i still think harvey keitel’s periods of anguished wailing seem odd and unnatural rather than moving.
tonight i watched the island via netflix streaming. no, not the michael bay film from 2005 with scarlett johansson. this is ostrov, a russian film from 2006. it’s about a man who makes a fateful decision under pressure as a young man, and ends up in a remote russian orthodox monastery as a father who seems to be crazy but is visited by a lot of people because of the powers/insight he seems to have. he is constantly seeking forgiveness for his sins, particularly for that fateful decision he made. all of the other orthodox fathers struggle to deal with him. he is what is considered a “fool for christ”. the pace is slow, but the visuals and contemplative nature of the story are beautiful. the dynamics of the interactions of the characters and what it reveals about people — our perceptions, our vices, our misunderstandings, etc. — is really great. you really should see this beautiful film, particularly if you search for something deeper and more meaningful to christianity than a lot of the mainstream american stuff you see around you. and from reviews, evidently it really hits at the heart of russian culture as it ties to faith. the more i think about the movie, the more i like it.
i’ve now gone two weeks without having any soda, tea, or coffee. mostly water, some fruit juice. i’ve also been pretty successful at avoiding eating purely “filler” sides. i’ve completely avoided fries and chips so far. i’m sure i’m still making poor eating choices, but i’m not trying to be healthy, just healthier. and it’s probably just temporary anyway.