Happy Thanksgiving!

I wish everyone a wonderful Thanksgiving! Manderz, I'm thinking of you as you cook today (and being thankful that I'm not cooking). Becky, James, Nicole, and Sarah we miss you terribly. As I sit here, all the aunts are scurrying around the kitchen. Lisa is mashing potatoes, Debby is dressing the salad, Linda is making the carrots and garlic green beans, and my mom is tending to the turkeys. Sherry has actually just escaped to the family room to play with Jules, but that's okay since she's provided so many delicious pies. Kathy will soon be walking through the door with her cheesy cauliflower (and three grandsons in tow) and Kris has gone over to put the rolls in the oven. (Beck, she took your job!) Liz, Zack, Jen, and Emily are sitting in the family room chatting and enjoying the turkey aroma. We can't wait to dig in.

And yes, there's enough stuffing to sell on the street.

I hope you all have fabulous Thanksgivings (or had, in the case of Becky who is half a day ahead of us) and that we'll see you for Christmas.

No, that's one plus two plus one plus one.

So, last night my heavy, glass light fixture in my hallway mysteriously detached itself from my ceiling and crashed ten feet to the floor. I think my house is trying to give me a concussion.

I am car kryptonite!

So, there was the time a branch, no, make that a log, fell from a tree and shattered my windshield. Then there was the other time a log fell from a tree and shattered the back window of the car I was borrowing while my car was in the shop. Then there was the time I had to have my engine replaced after only 62,000 miles. I have my father's luck with cars.

Recently, Uncle Denny moved his parking spot and offered me his old one, in a city garage. I haven't even been parking there two weeks and last night two floors of the building collapsed. Collapsed!

My only surprise is that my car wasn't in there at the time. It could have finished the job the log started.

I despise Randy Moss with the white hot intensity of a thousand suns.

I don't want to get into it; it's a long story. Suffice it to say that man will take any opportunity to screw me over and he's proven it in spades this week. I loathe him from the bottom of his hooves to the top of his pitchfork.

PS...

I think I love Barney.

To Becky, Megs, and Liz...

I just started on the pilot of How I Met Your Mother. I hope you guys are right about this show.

ABC is clearly wicked and evil.

The ABC network, which I am certain stands for Absolutely Beastly and Cruel, has canceled what is easily the most clever and original show on television: Pushing Daisies. I feel betrayed, bewildered, and bereft. It's like Arrested Development all over again. Can no one recognize genius anymore? I'm SO glad ABC will have more room in its lineup for those scintillating episodes of Wife Swap!

Ridiculous!

Conversations from lunch

Today my mom, Melis, Jen, Jules, and I went to lunch at Red Lobster. Melis was looking at the news headlines on the TV in the bar area when this took place:

Melis: Barack Obama is naming Hilary Clinton Secretary of State.
Ali: I think my lobster is going to come back up.

Oliver Stone ruins everything.

You may or may not know this about me, but I loathe Oliver Stone's film work. No, I mean really loathe it. I have this theory that Stone started strong, delivering a one-two punch by bursting onto the scene with two good films, and then people started saying, "That Oliver Stone, man, he's brilliant!" And he got this reputation that has stuck, no matter how many times he has insulted us (at a rate of 24 frames per second) since that time. The Doors? Ridiculous! Natural Born Killers? I literally fell asleep in the movie theater. That film was so terrible I slipped into a coma, as that was my only escape. I could have been kidnapped! Any Given Sunday? That movie will make you hate football and everyone who plays it. Alexander? I was humiliated for everyone involved! Do you know what it takes to be humiliated for Colin Farrell? Do you?

And the length! The average human bladder is no match for the average Oliver Stone film. Don't even get me started on the historical subject films. I had a history professor who sat on a board of advisors to Hollywood directors on historical matters. Stone's response to their advice? "I don't care about historical accuracy. I want to tell my own story." Well fine, but then tell your own story, not a story about real people whose lives you twist in an effort to willfully deceive your audience. Or is original material too difficult for you to come up with, you talentless hack!

Serenity now!

Okay, so, that happened. And with this point of view, you'd hardly expect me to pay money to see W. in a movie theater, but that's exactly what I did Wednesday night. "But Allison, have you gone mad? It's an Oliver Stone film about the life a president that Hollywood largely despises! How can you expect a fair portrayal? Also, it's Oliver Stone!"

I know, I know. But I think it will get several Oscar nominations and I do love to be Oscar ready. I have endured much pain in my quest for Oscar-readiness. (Read: I sat through The Squid and the Whale and paid for the privilege of doing so.)

So, the film. It was... not great. But it wasn't hideous either, although that may be because I knew it was an Oliver Stone film and I lowered my expectations accordingly. It was quite short for a Stone film: just over two hours. That, coupled with its extremely abrupt ending, makes me think he cut it short in order to rush it to theaters so he could premiere it while the subject was still in office. Whatever, it saved my bladder. Richard Dreyfuss played Dick Cheney, so that fact alone will keep Melis out of the theater, and Ioan Gruffudd managed to be a very unattractive Tony Blair, despite that fact that both Gruffudd and Blair are quite handsome, so, nice work there, hair and make-up people. I have no idea what Thandie Newton was doing. She protrayed Condoleeza Rice as a botoxed android who spoke the way an alien might speak if it were guessing what our language sounded like just from reading printed material. I know from other films that she is a capable actress, so I choose to blame Stone for her excruciating performance.

However, Josh Brolin did a really good job in the title role. No, like, really good. I think he'll be nominated for Best Actor. He won't win. That statuette is obviously going home with Sean Penn for his role in Milk, for many reasons, including subject matter, timing of the release (a very fresh-in-Oscar-voters' memories early December), and just the fact that he's Sean Penn and he has created an aura of assumed brilliance that seems to blind moviegoers even if he's not particularly brilliant in a given role. (Hello, The Thin Red Line.) Unfortunately, he has zero sense of humor (Spicoli was a fluke) and will almost certainly give a droning clunker of a speech, but you could just use that time for a much-needed bathroom break, because the Oscars are even longer than an Oliver Stone film. But back to Josh Brolin. He'll get a nomination and he'll deserve one, too, because he managed to rise above Oliver Stone's direction and deliver a fair performance in spite of him.

And when he told his step-mother, Barbra Streisand, about taking the role, she apparently freaked out. Brolin said, "She was furious and would not talk to me. I kind of liked that one." Hee!

I knew I liked him.

Somebody help me, please!

I just spent the last nine hours with George Michael’s “Monkey” running through my head. Who know how many more hours of it I have ahead of me?

I don’t think I can take this. I’m not that strong.

Does my vain spirit ever tell me I am wrong?

A new BBC adapatation of Emma will soon be underway! Whee! I love BBC adaptations of anything, but especially Jane Austen novels. If I had my way, there would be a constant revolving production of Austen adaptations going on at the BBC. At the very least, I'd like them to give the same care, consideration, and length of running time to all the novels as they've shown to Pride and Prejudice.

No word on casting yet (please cast Richard Armitage as Mr. Knightley, please cast Richard Armitage as Mr. Knightley, please cast Richard Armitage as Mr. Knightley), but the script will be adapted by Sandy Welch. This is excellent news as she is the writer who scripted the productions of Dickens' Our Mutual Friend and Gaskell's North and South, two classic literature adapatations that I own and totally love and watch far too often. Some may have preferred Andrew Davies to script it, but honestly, the way he's been going, I'd expect him to slip in a scene where Emma makes out with Frank Churchill. I don't think the man can be trusted.

The Fickle Finger of Fantasy Football

You know, I could use this space to say something really snarky about Linda or Becky, because I know they didn't even make it past the title of the post. I won't do that, but it's nice to have the freedom.

Instead, I will save my snark for my wretched FF team and the way it is undergoing a very public, Mariah Carey-esque meltdown. This week I painfully surrendered the Division lead to Jamie, and if her brothers-in-law don't cut me some slack in the next two weeks, I may not even make the play-offs. Randy Moss doesn't catch much and apparently Lee Evans doesn't catch anything at all. It's disheartening to know that I could have donned a Buffalo Bills uniform and took to the field in his place and the outcome would have been the same.

Gentlemen, please stop sucking.

"We should just be thankful for being together. I think that's what they mean by 'Thanksgiving,' Charlie Brown."

Not to be a downer, but this has easily been the worst year of my life. I will always look back on 2008 with sadness. However, it’s November, so I feel like I have to take stock of all the lovely things in my life that make me thankful. And you know what? The list is quite long. What are you thankful for? Here, in no particular order (so I can't be accused of valuing peanut butter above my family), are some of mine:

The smell of my parents' house when my mom is making a big pot of spaghetti sauce.

Living in a place with gorgeous autumn foliage.

Not being born into a small family.

D'Arc's pizza and homemade rolls.

My beautiful niece who makes me so happy.

Living near the Westwood Plaza movie theater.

That Jane Austen decided to pick up a pen and write.

That Ethan and Joel Coen decided to make movies.

That Joss Whedon decided to make TV shows.

My D40.

An apartment with big windows, high ceilings, and hardwood floors.

Friendships dating back to junior high and elementary school.

Picking out a Christmas tree with my dad.

God's sovereignty and mercy.

Messing up the peanut butter.

The plethora of food delivery people within a 3-mile radius of my apartment.

My iPod, a constant companion.

Conzatti's almond biscotti.

Challenge Sodoku on Facebook.

Ending up in a family with people I'd want to be around even if we weren't related.

Ikea shelves that let me indulge my need for uber-organization.

Pushing Daisies. (Please don't cancel it, ABC!)

Martha Stewart craft supplies.

A brand new Burt's Bees peppermint chapstick with a nice, smooth top.

Survey question: Tipping at carside pick-up

Hey all, give me your opinion (I know you're dying to). I, the Take-out Queen, sometimes order things at Applebee's and pick it up at the Carside To Go spot. If you're not familiar with it, here's how it works: You call, you order your Caesar salad and side of mashed potatoes (which you plan to mix together when you get home - yum), you tell them the make and color of your car, you pull into one of the designated parking spots, and your food is brought out to you like at a '50s diner, sans the roller skates.

So far, I have not been tipping the person who brings me my food. I figure they didn't wait on me during my meal, and they didn't use gas and time to drive to my house with the food. I don't tip the person who hands me my burger at a drive-thru or even the person who brings me my cherry limeade at a Sonic, yet I'm wondering if I am expected to tip the Carside To Go person. What do you think?

Oscar readiness begins!

"Don't distract me. I'm sucking in my cheeks."

I have officially begun to get Oscar ready. The nominations won't be out until February, but you can usually tell which films have Oscar bait written all over them. BBC period pieces starring Kiera Knightley and Ralph Fiennes are practically tattooed with statuettes, so I went to see The Duchess at Westwood yesterday. It was very good, one of those decadent costume dramas with amazing corsetted gowns and lots of melodrama.

I do not care for any of the four principle actors, so it's quite a feat that I enjoyed the film so much. Kiera Knightley, while very talented, has always gotten on my nerves. I think it's the fact that she always looks like she's concentrating too hard on holding her cheekbones so high and making her lips so pouty. Dominic Cooper annoys me for reasons I cannot even verbalize. It is what it is. Hayley Atwell played a very tiresome character in Brideshead Revisited, and I think I just attributed that to Hayley herself, as is my wont. And speaking of actor baggage, I have never been able to see Ralph Fiennes as anything but deeply creepy. Perhaps it's the cold, ice-blue eyes, or the serpent-like gaze he has, but I suspect it's mostly to do with the fact that the first thing I saw him in, he played a Nazi. There's no digging yourself out of that hole.

Anyway, I thought the film was very good, so imagine how much more you'd enjoy it if you actually like these actors. I suspect Knightley will pull out a Best Actress nom (and deservedly so - the entire film rests on her slender, anorexic shoulders, and she owns it), and the film may also grab a Best Pic nom.

The best part of it all? Only two other people were in the theater and they didn't talk at all. Oh joy, rapture!

Now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb.

Tim Hightower's projected Fantasy score: 20

Tim Hightower's actual Fantasy score: 4

Thank you for your evil support.

(Sorry, Scott.)

It has come to my attention that I may, in fact, be a horrible person.

I hesitate to talk about Fantasy Football because apparently I have made myself odious to some of my family members in doing so. To quote Becky, "When you talk about Fantasy Football, all I hear is 'blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.'" To further quote Aunt Linda, "It's not just that I'm hearing 'blah, blah, blah.' It's that I'm thinking, 'She's usually interesting, and now why doesn't she just shut up?'" But I cannot shut up! I am here to make an impassioned plea to my readership. All four of you. (Minus Aunt Linda, who stopped reading this seven words into the post). I need us all to pull together and put the hex on Arizona Cardinals running back Tim Hightower, the last remaining player on Scott's team and the only one who can push Scott's score over mine. Hightower is projected to get 20 points tonight, but I can't afford for him to get more than 13.

Scott has already won the Survivor competition. (Congrats, Scott.) He doesn't need to win the weekly match-up as well. Perhaps if we all send enough bad thoughts Hightower's way, he'll trip over his own feet and be out in the first quarter.

You know, I never claimed to be a decent person.

Not my best day

I hate needles. This is no secret. My dad used to have to surprise me with my annual flu shot. He'd lie in wait and when I walked in the front door and he'd pounce and say, "Get in the car," and I'd spend the five minute ride to the doctor's office trying not to hyperventilate. As soon as I was in college, I celebrated my newfound freedom by chucking the flu shot tradition and I've never looked back. Ah, glorious liberty!

Well, this year Jen has stipulated that I must get a flu shot or risk being denied the opportunity to hold my niece. (Vaccination Nazi!) And my mother has been acting as Grand Inquisitor in this whole charade, haranguing me daily about the shot because... I don't know, she thinks I'm going to not get it and then lie and say I did? I... don't know. It's a lot of pressure!

So, today was flu shot day at work. Horrid. Horrid. The conference room had the stench of a hospital ward, I can only assume from the off-gassing of the syringes and gauze. People were standing around, chatting merrily, as if we weren't all waiting around to get a piece of metal jabbed into our flesh. I stood in line, trying not to feel woozy, as my co-worker made ill-conceived blood-spatter jokes involving the show CSI. I wanted to make a few ill-conceived jokes of my own involving his receding hairline, but I am a lady.

So Mom, the deed is done. You can stop asking me about it. But I think I should at least get some extra baby-holding time for my ordeal.

Happy Election Day!

Oh yeah? Well, I’m not scared either!

So, this past weekend was Halloween weekend. Normally I would be dressing up as a flapper or as a goth girl or as Miss Hannigan in a sadly misguided outfit that ended up looking more like a prostitute dressed as a secretary (don't ask), and then heading to Harrisburg for another of my friend Melissa's legendary costume parties. But, alas, Melissa took herself and her party-planning skills to Arizona, so I decided to just watch a terrifying movie instead.

My first choice was Alfred Hitchcock's 1944 classic Jack The Ripper tale, "The Lodger." It arrived from Netflix just in time for my Halloween fright fest. Unfortunately, what arrived was actually the much tamer, much lamer 1927 silent movie version of The Lodger. Ooh, witness in terror how the wicked man wearing way too much eyeliner and rouge creeps up on the young girl as obnoxious nickelodeon music floods the speakers! Maybe he's eerily whispering to her that she has no escape, but we won't know that until the dialogue card flashes up. Whatever!

No problem, I thought. I'll move on to my back-up choice: the Italian thriller, "I'm Not Scared." Take a gander at Netflix's plot summary for this:

Michele, a 10-year-old boy growing up in a southern Italian village, discovers another youngster, Filippo, chained up inside a small hole dug in the yard of an abandoned house. Michele soon learns from watching the news that the boy has been kidnapped... and things take an even darker turn when a mysterious couple shows up claiming to be the boy's parents.

Creepy, no?

No. No, it was not creepy at all. There was no mysterious couple claiming to be the child's parents. I don't know if the people at Netflix were watching this movie and then accidentally switched to "Annie" and just didn't realize it or what. Yeah, there's a kidnapped boy and yeah, the other boy finds him, but they spend most of the film playing in wheat fields. The movie was billed as a thriller, but the title is apt: They're not scared and you won't be either.

In the end, the creepiest thing about my Halloween was the spooky music and fake fog at my neighbors’ house as they handed out candy. Maybe next year.