Road Trip: The Debt

 

The Debt
starring
Helen Mirren
Jessica Chastain
Tom Wilkinson
Marton Csokas
Ciarán Hinds
Sam Worthington
Jesper Christiansen
Romi Aboulafia

Directed by
John Madden

So after having missed an opportunity to go to the theater the previous weekend, The Girlfriend and I tried it again last weekend.  We were aided by the fact that she was babysitting her Aunt’s house and her cats, so I was able to go into Bakersfield on Saturday and spend the night,  That way we could not only see a movie but we could both have the brunch buffet at Marie Callender’s the next morning.  

The Girlfriend has some strange ideas that really annoy me.  She would rather go to a movie that she has no real interest in seeing, just because she doesn’t want to pay the difference in cost between the matinee price and the evening price.  You can’t blame her for being thrifty I suppose, but there is such a thing as carrying it to the extremes.  I mean, isn’t it worth a few extra dollars to spend some time with your supposed beloved, that of course being me?  Never mind, don’t answer that.

Due to circumstances beyond my control, I didn’t make it into Bakersfield as early as I had hoped I would.  I guess you want to know why, don’t you?  My, you are the nosy bunch.  If not just skip ahead to the review because this is the part where I make the blog personable, just like I said I was going to.  It’s the way I left off a little steam now and then.

The Girlfriend was supposed to call and wake me up so that I wouldn’t sleep too late on Saturday, something I have a tendency to do unless I’m doing something really special such as making a trip to L.A.  She didn’t.  Then when I did get up and get motor-vated, The Girlfriend’s sister hopped into the shower mere minutes before I could get into the one adjacent to our bedroom.  And two showers at the same time is not workable in this house considering the plumbing was installed in 1912, right after it was salvaged from the Titanic.

And let me tell you, this gal takes record setting showers.  I didn’t know that a hot water heater could even hold that much water.  Sometimes I half expect a walking talking Sunsweet Pitted Prune in a robe to come walking out of the bathroom when she’s done.  But still, I figured that even after the forty five minutes she was in there, I should have no problem getting into Bakersfield at a decent hour after taking my own fifteen minute shower, even with having to make a stop at the local Save Mart to get some sodas.  Honorable Son No. 3 also wanted me to take him to get his cash checked and that was doable as well.

But plans started to go awry the minute we arrived at Save Mart.  They had exactly one check out lane open, and there was a line all the way back to the Bum Fuck Meat Department.  I’m exaggerating a bit, but you get the idea.  It took us quite a while to get out of that place so time wise things weren’t looking so hot.  It was about to get worse.

I had to drive all the way across Wasco down highway 46 to get to the Wasco Liquor Store where Honorable Son No 3 cashes his check, and traffic did not cooperate one bit.  But at least there was a parking space when we got there.  I waited patiently while he went inside.  Several minutes later he returned and informed me that somehow he had brought the check stub with him instead of the actual check. 

So it was necessary to drive across town to get back home.  It was then that I remembered that it was the day of the annual Wasco Rose Festival which is held in Barker Park and the surrounding area.  Having made the mistake of going in that direction it took forever to get back to the house.  I had meant to blog  the Rose Festival for my blog rejuvenation, but it was way too late to do anything about that now, except rerun this seven year old picture or wait until next year.  

I waited for him to run inside the house and get the proper portion of his whopping big McDonald’s check.  To make matters worse, temperatures were in the high nineties and the air conditioning in my car has been kaputz for a couple of years.  I had tried to think of a faster route to the Liquor Store but there wasn’t one, although I did have sense enough when I took him home (again) to avoid the Rose Festival so it wasn’t nearly as bad on the return trip.  Finally I was able to head into Bakersfield, but it was apparent that we were going to have a hard time catching a matinee.  I finally arrived at her aunt’s home around 4:30 PM.

The movie she had wanted to see was The Debt.  I don’t know why because it was the last film I had expected The Girlfriend to want to see.  But to be fair, I knew nothing about the film so maybe she had read something or seen the trailer for it.  You know how trailers are.  They often make a movie seem like something it’s not.  Myself?  I would have rather seen Contagion or even The Help but not The Debt.  Hell, even the title sounded lame.   I thought The Help would be right up her alley but apparently not.  She said she’d wait for the DVD and nothing I said could convince her otherwise.

It appeared at first that we weren’t going to see The Debt either.  There were no more matinee showings that we could make it to on time.  So if we were going to make the Matinee as she insisted that we do, we were going to see My Idiot Brother.  I considered that to be appropriate considering how idiotic The Girlfriend was being about her requirement of not attending an evening showing.  So we got into her Ford Escape and headed to the theater.  Although neither film was one I would have picked out, I decided I would rather take my chances with The Debt.

“What I think is silly,” I told her, “is that you’ll go see something you know you don’t want to see just to save a few extra dollars.  And besides, if we go to Valley Plaza, my admission is only $5.50 regardless of what time we go so we’ll only have to pay for one regular admission.” 

It must have been that last part that convinced her.  She asked me to check the times that The Debt was showing which I did.   If we had gone to see My Idiot Brother, we would have ate dinner after the movie.  Since we were going to a later showing we went to Marie Callender’s which you can read about here.

So eventually we made it to the Valley Plaza.  I also knew for sure that we were going to end up in one of their cigar box screening rooms.   And this we did, thus keeping The Girlfriend’s record intact of only picking movies that either everybody had already seen weeks before or nobody wanted to see now.  But even so, the theater was hardly busy.  In fact they only had one concession stand open and the girl working it was practically begging for people to buy popcorn.  Later I would find out that it was the weakest weekend of the year at the box office and boy did it show at this place.

Still, for some reason they had not cleaned out our cigar box cinema yet, even though we weren’t all  that early.  That left me with some time to kill which meant either twiddling my thumbs, talking to The Girlfriend, or taking pictures with my cell.  I opted for taking pictures with my cell.  Lucky you.   I bet since we have been here before I would forego this.  But there’s always something going on.  Nevertheless,  I’ll try to be glib.

Kenny Wormald Who?

Oh well, I can always settle for downloading a nude picture of her.

Now that I’ve wasted your time with all the other crap what about this movie?

 

The Debt is the story of three Israeli Mossad agents who sneak into East Berlin in the 1960’s to locate a German war criminal known as Dieter Vogel, the Surgeon of Birkenau (Jesper Christiansen), who experimented on and tortured Jews during World War II at Auschwitz.  Once they have ascertained  that he is the man they are looking for, their mission is to capture him, escape with him from Berlin, and return him to the west to stand trial for his horrendous crimes.  When the film opens the three agents are in fact arriving home as heroes, although Vogel is not with them.  Later we  will  find out why, but opening your picture with a scene that should be near the end is often not a good idea and that ended up being true for The Debt.

Flash forward to the present day.  The daughter of agent Rachel Singer (Helen Mirren) and Agent Stephen Gold  (Tom Wilkinson), Sarah Gold  (Romi Aboulafia), has written a book based on the exploits of her mother and the other agents.  In fact, her mother is given the task to read one of the chapters of the book aloud at a party being given to celebrate the book’s release.  As she begins reading, the film flashes back to illustrate the events as they happened, at least as they do in Sarah’s book.

At the same time that Rachel is doing her reading, the third agent, David Peretz (Ciaran Hinds) is picked up for a debriefing, but when he sees Stephen waiting in a nearby vehicle, he commits suicide by throwing himself in front of a truck.

The film then flashes back again to all of the events in the past and what actually happened.  Needless to say, what is written in Sarah’s book may or may not be exactly truthful.  And therein lies the main problem with The Debt. 

Once we realize that everything the agents do in the past is simply a buildup to one moment in time or in this case a book chapter, the film loses much of it’s suspense.  Watching how they capture the despicable Vogel, is chilling enough, especially when a young Rachel (Jessica Chastain) has to pay several visits to him by pretending that she and her make believe young husband David (Sam Worthington) are having trouble conceiving.  And we also see why their escape from Berlin with Dieter failed.  You already knew they weren’t going to make it so it’s simply a matter of finding out why.  And frankly if real life agents were as careless as this trio, the Mossad couldn’t capture a flea on their best day.

The interplay between the agents and Dieter is a study in psychological games, one that Dieter seems more adept at than the three agents.  He  knows how to manipulate them.  You would think they would be prepared for such a thing but they are not.  It is during this time that Rachel falls in love with David, but is rebuffed because he is only concentrating on the mission.  Rachel seeks solace in the arms of Stephen, a decision that has lasting consequences for all concerned.

But despite all that intrigue and love triangulation, it will always be in the back of your mind that this is just the filler until we get to the big reveal scene that tells what really happened one night in Berlin, and you just end up wanting them to get on with it and move the story forward.  And frankly, you’ll probably have guessed the big secret anyway.  Since you already know at the beginning of the movie the trio are going to concoct a fictional retelling of the events, it goes without saying that decision has it’s ramifications as well.  If ever a film begged for linear story telling this one would be the candidate.  The flashbacks in the first twenty minutes or so detract from everything that happened in the past, whereas if they had begun in the sixties as they should have, you probably would have been on the edge of your seat the entire time.  It’s sort of like watching or reading Love Story.  In the first paragraph they tell you the main character is going to die.  So you spend the rest of your time waiting for the Grim Reaper to come down and scoop  Jennifer Cavilleri away.

To make matters worst, the story then picks up in the present day where the agents must deal with the consequences of their actions in Berlin.  It’s interesting enough, but is spoiled by a ridiculous coincidence during the last ten minutes that just doesn’t hold water and will have you leave the theater feeling worse about the film then you would otherwise.  I could only shake my head and wonder why.

It’s a shame too, because some good performances are wasted.  Helen Mirren is always excellent, but Jessica Chastain as the younger Rachel is exceptional and almost upstages her present day counterpart.

 

Likewise, Jesper Christiansen’s portrayal, along with Chastain’s, would normally be the stuff supporting actor nominations are made up of if it were in a better film. As a matter of fact, I found both of the actors who played the younger David and Stephen far more believable and intriguing than their older selves, who just seem crotchety and grumpy.

The bottom line is that the film is worth watching, but I would wait for a DVD rental and no more than that.  And if I can’t recommend that you go out on a road trip of your own to see a film, I have no choice but to give it a grade of C+. It’s a good effort that just misses the mark.  See you, on the road.

The New Blogger I Phone App - Taking it for a drive

Out at Circle K, junking up on some food. I was just bitching about blogger not having a mobile app last weekend. Ask and you shall receive. Thank you blogger.

You Are What You Eat–Denny’s Gut Bustin’ Cheesy Menu, T-Bones Ranch House, Marie Callender’s Pasta Special and Sunday Brunch.

I imagine many of you have ate at one of these places at some point in your life, except for T-Bones which is a local Bakersfield concoction.  It may be harder to find a Marie Callender’s  restaurant near you though.  They closed 30 restaurants in June and filed for bankruptcy protection which is never a good thing.  Most of the stores they closed were on the West Coast, and they gave no notice to employees when they did so, which also is not a good thing.

The one we’ve been to in Bakersfield off and on over the years is still in business, and I’ve always received decent food and service there.  And besides, the pies are always good. 

As for Denny’s, while the menu doesn’t vary much from place to place, there are always variables with any chain.  These would be restaurant management, who’s cooking in the kitchen with Dinah, and of course the service by the employees.  The local Denny’s that we frequent opened just over a year or so ago, and we’ve never had any big problem.  I can only remember a couple of times that our visit might have been worth complaining about at all and nothing really disastrous.  At least not yet.

Before Denny’s came to town, we used to eat at a restaurant up the street called Perkos that really didn’t have a whole lot of competition for the kind of restaurant it is.  I believe it too is part of a chain, but more local than nationwide.  You can see it in this article I wrote previously at the beginning of my blog rejuvenation project.

For a while it wasn’t a bad place to dine.  Then for some reason things went to hell in a hand basket.  The food became inedible, the portions smaller, the prices higher, and the service hit the skids.  After two ridiculously bad visits to Perkos with The Girlfriend, we quit going.  I looked up who owned the chain, sent them an email and they never responded.  That was about two years ago. 

I did go back with Honorable Son No. 3 once to see if things had improved now that they had competition, but sadly, they were just as bad as always.  Still, the local yokels frequent the place, mostly out of habit.  But I can see Denny’s seriously cutting into their business seeing as how management and ownership don’t seem to really give a shit.  So don’t believe this nonsense on their web site.

Anyway, I’m off track and this is supposed to be about Denny’s.  As I was saying, the menu doesn’t change much except for the temporary themes that they have on the menu until they eventually wear out their welcome and a new one appears.  That’s why it always says “For a limited time only.” 

I think the last one they had was called something like Tastes Across America.  It went over well with The Girlfriend who really enjoyed some sandwich that had beef and French Fries on it.  I was in full diet mode at the time so I couldn’t partake.  I usually had the Tilapia and it wasn’t so hot.

But that theme is gone and has now been replaced with “Let’s Get Cheesy.”  Of course you know that anything with cheese in it is loaded with calories.  Some of these items are real artery clogging diet busters even if you’re not on a diet.  So don’t go the day before the doctor is checking your cholesterol.  But I’m not here to count calories.  Far be it from me to try and tell people what they should or should not eat.

So last week The Girlfriend and I were at Denny’s and took a couple of the new menu items for a drive around the eating booth.  The girlfriend ordered the Cheesy Sampler.  I can’t report on how it tasted because she ate it, not I, and she’s not here.  Wait a minute, and I’ll call her on my cell phone and get a full report.

The girlfriend says,

“It was alright.  I liked it well enough.  But it really didn’t have enough cheese on it.  With a name like “Cheesy” I expected it to have more cheese which is what gave it its flavor.  Other than that, I liked it.” 

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, The Girlfriend is staying in Bakersfield for six weeks or more, babysitting her aunt’s house.  Guess I’ll just have to tough it out.  Hurray for me!

Looking more closely at the picture, I can see what she means.  For it being a cheese promotion, the cheese does look a bit skimpy on everything except the eggs.  And I’m not sure about that sausage.  Looks a bit overdone.  That’s what it looks like in real life, but keep in mind that it will probably vary from restaurant to restaurant.

You can compare it to the original on Denny’s web site by going there and……oh hell, never mind.  I did the work for you and here’s a screen capture of what Denny’s says it’s suppose to look like:

Don’t hold the fact that the Denny’s picture looks so much better deter you.  The chances are that’s not even real food on that plate.  I knew what ever I had off that menu was going to put a hole in my diet so I tried to choose something that wouldn’t add 20 lbs. to my frame as I walked out the door. I finally chose something called the “Cheesy Skillet.”   Keep in mind that this thing can best be compared to a breakfast fajita skillet without the tortilla to pile it into.  Also, the one on Denny’s web site shows it with the eggs sunny side up.  Mine was over easy.  Here’s Denny’s ad:

Looks good enough to eat doesn’t it?  Well, keep your expectations in check.  Because there’s the advertisement, and then there’s the reality.  And the reality is this:

All I can say is that it tasted better than it looks.  Then again, mine wasn’t in a shiny new skillet and posed for a picture either.  And unlike The Girlfriend, mine had plenty of cheese.  So much so that it looked like it was seeping through the egg.  I hadn’t counted on the vegetables being charbroiled though.  But for the price, it was good enough,  and filled us both up.  But that may have been because The Girlfriend insisted on us sharing a big plate of pancakes.  But I think on my next trip to Denny’s I’ll try something else.

But if anybody from Denny’s happens this way I do want to register a complaint.  What was the purpose in taking chili off the menu, and then limiting your daily soup selections to about three alternating ones?  I really liked having a bowl of chili once in a while.  Couldn’t you have sold chili burgers to get rid of any excess you may have had?  Bad decision, Denny’s.

Two weekends ago though we made a shopping trip into Bakersfield.  It was supposed to be a movie trip but that didn’t happen.  Instead we ended up at a place we had visited about a month ago.  The place is called T-Bones Ranch House, and is located on District Boulevard in Bakersfield.  The location is not the greatest for us.  It seems to be far away from just about every place we go except Sam’s Club and we don’t go there very often.  This time we were way on the other side of Bakersfield and had to use the GPS to make sure we arrived there without getting lost.  And from all the turns we made along the way, we would have had a bit of trouble getting there to say the least.

The last time we were at T-Bones, I was still in full dieting mode.  I still should be but as you can see I’m kind of not at the moment.  I can’t even remember what I had at that time but I know it was fish or chicken.  It’s always fish or chicken.  I thought I had a picture of that meal somewhere but my hard drive is such a mess.  I really really have to get that situation under control…..someday.

Besides being a restaurant, T-Bones also has a lounge where they have live music.  But if that’s not your bag, have no fear.  It is off on the other side of the building and the acoustics are such that you won’t even notice.  On this trip, the special was a 12 oz. Rib-eye complete with salad, potatoes, and dinner rolls for $18.95 each.  And that is what we ordered.  I ordered mine medium, and my girlfriend ordered hers medium well I believe. 

Although it was a Saturday, the place didn’t seem very busy.  In fact, I don’t think there was enough for all the help to do.  You’ve heard of service with a smile?  Well we got that and then some.  And then some more.  And then some more again.  Sometimes there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.  But I’m not really going to complain about that because I’d rather see the waiter/waitress too much than not at all if you know what I mean.

I took a few camera shots of the interior while we waited on our dinner.  Not really much to see here except that it’s supposed to have that Texas type ranch atmosphere to it.  But I’ve only been through Texas once, and didn’t stop at any ranch in Amarillo, so I’m really clueless as to whether or not that’s what they were trying to achieve.  Maybe it was the Ponderosa from Bonanza they were shooting for.  But the Cartwright's have all gone to the big Virginia City in the sky so I can’t fire off an email and ask them either.

You decide.  I am going to have to work on getting better pictures though.  I’m kind of hesitant about taking pictures as you can see.  I guess I could just pass myself off as a tourist but it’s hard to say you’re just passing through once you’ve been to a place two or three times.

I also had a shot of the exterior but damned if I know where it went.  I know I took one but I may have accidentally deleted it.  You know how it is when you’re all thumbs.  Then there was the one I took just as you walk in the door but that was too blurry too use. 

You get your dinner rolls before you get dinner.  The dinner rolls are actually one of the best things about T-Bones.  Rule of thumb:  No matter where you are, if the bread is good, it helps set the pace for the rest of the meal.

Eventually they brought our steaks.  Mine was cooked about the way I liked it but The Girlfriend says that her steak had too much pink.  But she opted to eat it anyway mainly because when we eat out like this The Girlfriend seldom eats much of her meal.  She usually takes most of it home especially since having the lap band surgery.  I told her that if she reheated her steak in the microwave that the pink would disappear.  And it did when she took my advice the next day although she said it made the steak tougher.

The steak was tasty enough, but the quality probably could have been  better especially for the price that was charged.  It was a little tough even without The Girlfriend zapping it.  The chili beans weren’t that good either.  They tasted more like the Mexican refried beans than chili beans.  The Girlfriend concurred with me on that.  She had them on our last visit and said they were better that time.  There was also more grease sliding around on my plate than I prefer but it’s not something that would make or break a meal for me.  On the other hand, the salad was fresh, and they use real tomatoes and not those phony miniature ones that some restaurants try to pass off on you.   But I think for the price they could have had a few more ingredients in the salad.

 

The total for all this was about $44.00 not including tip.  So we’re talking roughly $50.00.  Really, I hate the way that having a damn glass of tea or a soft drink in these places jacks up the price.  We’ll probably return to T-Bones again, although once I hit the $50 mark I begin thinking Tahoe Joe’s or even Famous Dave’s.

This past weekend I went to stay in Bakersfield with The Girlfriend and headed up there on Saturday afternoon.  We decided on dinner and a movie.  The movie was “The Debt” of which I’ll be writing about in a separate post sometime soon.  We had our usual debate on where to dine.  We knew that we were going to Marie Callender’s the following morning for brunch because The Girlfriend had purchased some “buy 1 get 1 free coupons” some time back and they were going to expire in October. 

I suggested that we just go to Marie Callender’s at this time as well because it was within reasonable proximity of the theater and not really much out of the way of her Aunt’s house.  She didn’t think we should at first because we would be eating there the next morning.  My argument was that brunch was one thing but this was dinner so we wouldn’t be eating the same things.  After looking at it from that perspective she agreed.

There are many Marie Callender’s around but I’ve only been in two. The one on California Drive in Bakersfield, and we stopped at one near Magic Mountain on our way to L.A. about seven years ago.   But here’s a crappy exterior picture of the one in Bakersfield, and one of the interior as well that I took with my I-phone because once again I forgot the good camera.

I usually have decent meals at this restaurant but on this particular day they had a special on Pasta.  Your choice of Pasta with a Caesar Salad and a slice of pie.   I generally don’t order the specials very often because except for a place like Olive Garden, they’ll often jack you around with serving portions.  But I ordered the Chicken Alfredo and The Girlfriend had the Rigatoni. 

At Marie Callender’s you get cornbread which doesn’t do a thing for me because I’m not a fan.  The girlfriend likes it well enough, but to me it’s just a crumbly tasteless mess.  But I ate a piece anyway, just to be sporting.

See, crumbly mess just as I said it was.  But I imagine it keeps their food cost down and if any chain needs to keep that under control at the moment it would be Ms. Marie’s. 

Soon after we had the cornbread they brought the main meal, and right away I knew that we had made a couple of mistakes.  The first one was in not ordering an appetizer and the second one was ordering the damn special in the first place.  I don’t really know what I expected. Maybe I have spent too much time at Olive Garden.  The Pasta Items on OG’s menu are served on their own large plate and come with all you can eat soup or salad, and all the breadsticks one could ever hope for. In fact, The Girlfriend usually fills up on breadsticks and pasta and then takes her pasta home.

For Marie Callender’s special, the  pasta and the salad were both on the same plate, although the pasta was in it’s own special little Shirley Temple side dish.  I don’t know why I expected it to be on it’s own large plate and the salad in a bowl but I did.  I guess I was daydreaming about other places again. 

The Chicken Alfredo Pasta actually looked like it was made from a box of Betty Crocker’s chicken helper, the Rigatoni looked like it came right from the Kitchen of Chef Boyardee.  But maybe it tasted better than it looked.  It didn’t really.  It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t very flavorful at all.  The girlfriend felt the same way about her rigatoni.  And the salad was so chintzy, I would have been better off just ordering a meal with the salad bar.  But lesson learned:  No more specials at Marie Callenders because the only thing special about it is the money they make by being chintzy with the food.  I mean, there’s just nothing more to say about it, so I guess I’ll just show you.

And I’m sure you thought I was exaggerating.  Anyway, there was always the pie and you can’t really go wrong with pie now can you?  Have you ever seen the movie Michael?

Pie
Pie
Me oh my
Nothing tastes sweet, wet, salty and dry
all at once o well it's pie
Apple!
Pumpkin!
Minced
an' wet bottom.
Come to your place everyday if you've got em'
Pie
Me o my
I love pie

Anyway, that’s how I feel about pie.  And of course, since it is a special, and considering what had come previously, you knew it wasn’t going to be very much pie.  And you would be right.  Notice the fork size and the slice of pie slice.  I think two bites and I was done with that sucker.  Oh well, at least it kept us from dawdling and we made it to the movie on time.  But your best bet is to wait until they are on sale and buy one of their whole pies.  That place sells a lot of pies that way.  This here was just sad, and if it weren’t for The Girlfriend’s coupons we wouldn’t have gone back the next day.

Buffets are tricky.  They can either be very good, or just terrible or even somewhere in between.  They can be overprice or a real bargain.  We had been to the Marie Callender’s Sunday Brunch Buffet before and at $18 a pop, it’s in the upper stratosphere of buffet prices.  At least for the Bakersfield area.  Of course, if you’re ever in Vegas and go to The Bellagio’s buffet, then you’d better take out a loan.  Remember, we had a coupon for buy one get one free so we were basically paying only nine bucks each.

The brunch is a mix of breakfast and lunch items.  The last time we went to Ms. Callender’s for this we arrived later in the day and the place was packed.  This time it was around 9 a.m. and just about everybody was either sleeping off their hangovers or in church praying for forgiveness for whatever it was they were doing when they tied one on the night before.  So that was a big plus and something to keep in mind if we ever go back.  So arrive early if you can.

As buffets go, this one is pretty good.  There is a wide variety of breakfast and lunch items to choose from, although the majority of the items are breakfast oriented.  You can also get an omelet freshly made to your specifications.   Order your omelet before getting any other items.  And unlike some places, the staff does a good job of refilling your drink (the price is included in the meal which is always a big plus), keeping the food fresh and warm, and the food area very clean.  Everything has it’s own heated container, and the lid’s actually shut properly so that’s another point for their side.

But remember, you are seldom allowed to take any food home with you unless you sneak in some baggies and put them in your pocket or purse.  The Girlfriend always gets the big eye and piles up way more than she can eat so I end up having to help her out because I hate food waste.  Also remember that at $18, you have to eat a lot of food to get your money’s worth.  But here’s what our meal looked like:

You can see that I probably piled too much on my plage, but sometimes it’s hard to choose and I don’t like having to get a bunch of different plates.  But The Girlfriend doesn’t mind doing that.  She had an omelet, ribs, ham, potatoes and Eggs Benedict.

That blurry picture is barbecued chicken.  That was mine.  All and all, I’d say this meal made up for the night before so I’m glad we went.  I’m not sure if it’s worth almost $19 each though if you’re just having breakfast, but that’s up to you and your pocketbook to decide that.  Not me.  At any rate, I’m sure we’ll go back sooner or later as long as they’re in business.  However long that may be.  Ladies and Gentlemen, dinner has been served.

A Day in the Life: Crazy weather for September in the desert.

I took this picture after The Girlfriend and I had left Marie Callendars.  I had hoped to do more mobile blogging when I started rejuvenating my blog.  Unfortunately, Google/Blogger does not make that easy.  You can upload a picture, or text,  but apparently getting them both on the same page (other than the title) is a bit of a problem.  Either that or I’m not doing it write.  So because of it’s limitations, I haven’t been able to.

I had given thoughts of switching my blog to WordPress, because apparently they do have a mobile application that as far as I know works.  But since I already purchased the domain name through Google, that became a bit more problematic.  Anyway, the gist of that picture is of course, that it was raining, and there was lightening as well.  You just don’t see much of that this time of year in this area.  It was just a little dab of moisture, but any type  of precipitation in these parts is treated as if it were a Tsunami.  Here’s another picture I took outside of the theater.  And you can already tell I forgot to take the good camera with me.

A Day in the Life–6:24 AM, Monday August 22……Of Dreams and Things

So it’s late when I finally am able to go to sleep on Sunday night.  But what the heck.  About four hours of good sleep and I’m ready to go.

Unfortunately, dreams and things sometimes have a way of interfering with the best laid plans of unknown bloggers.  The dream I partially remember.  It had something to do with Honorable No. 2 Son when he was little, and myself.  We were at a movie theater, and we were going to watch a new version of King Kong.  I had already scene it.  But this version surpassed anything you’ve seen in real life.

In this one, Kong actually jumps out of the screen.  But it’s okay because it’s just a mechanical Kong who goes berserk inside the theater.  This Kong is reminiscent of the one that used to be on the tour of Universal Studios before somebody set a match to him and burned his furry ass up.

So in the dream, I take my son to the theater, since I’ve already experienced this myself.  We want to find us some good seats so we can get a good look at all the action.  I’m sure the theater was one from my past, probably the old Laroy were I spent a lot of time as a child.  We find our seats in row eleven, which probably also has some significance, and then I wake up, my legs feeling like dead weights and my arms and hands in their usual numb state.  It is, 4:30 AM. 

There is still time to get some sleep if I can doze off.  But between the feet, the ankles, and the arms, it’s impossible.  If I had taken my meds, it would have helped all that and I would have slept.  But I have to wake up by 7:00, and when I take the Neurontin and the Vicatin that late (or that early) then it’s difficult to get going.  On several occasions I have kept right on sleeping, just waking up long enough to call work to either tell them I won’t be in or that I’ll be late.  So I struggle on without it, in a state of exhaustion.  But it soon becomes apparent that I will not be sleeping anymore.  So at 6:24 AM, I finally give up.

So I will go into work.  I need to take my medication, or I’ll be in bad pain about halfway through the day.  As it is, I’ll be exhausted all day if I don’t take the meds.  If I take them, I’ll be hard pressed not to doze off at my desk.   If it weren’t for the fact that because of all this medical nonsense, I’ve used up a good portion of my sick day and vacation days, I would just call in. But then again, if I did that, then The Girlfriend would bitch, moan, and groan about me missing work again.  Something she’s already doing this morning because of an unlocked door.  I really don’t want to hear about it.  A man’s home is not his castle.

So I’ll take the meds and hope for the best, and probably get the worst.  But that’s a day in the life.

A Day in the Life Stuff: Episode XLIV: A Not So New Hope

When we last left our intrepid medical explorer,  he was anticipating a call from Truckstop Radiation Inc.  to set up an appointment for an ultra sound on his Kidneys because his spinal MRI showed that he had Remal Cysts, or as they said on the official MRI Approved Form, Acquired Renal Cysts.  I don’t really know what if any differences there are in acquired cysts and ones that  aren’t, and I don’t really care.  But the appointment isn’t until the 25th of August or thereabouts.  I had to decide whether to work a partial day that day, or not at all.  But when the lady on the phone told me that I had to drink a quart of water within an hour of the test, then that pretty much settled that quandary especially since once I began drinking, pissing was not permitted.  Whatever that test reveals, I’m sure that under the usual BSOP (bullshit standard operating procedure), it’ll be several days before I get the results. 

As coincidence would have it, my generic PCP called the same afternoon with the news that I had been approved for a new neurologist, thus relegating Dr. A. C. Neurologist into the annals of my medical history for all time, hopefully never to emerge from that cocoon again.   The new neurologist, who unlike Dr. A.C.,  is supposed to be  the real genuine article  neurosurgeon or so I surmised from my conversation with the PCP.  And they wanted to waste no time  setting me up for an 8:45 AM appointment on Friday morning.  This was on  Wednesday, and it was extremely short notice, but you do what you have to do.  Unfortunately my supervisor was off work on Thursday so the best that I could do is leave her a note.   But I did turn in the request to take the day off for next weeks Kidney Family Portrait. Sometimes, standard operating procedures at work fall under the BSOP banner as well.

For the sake of discretion and decorum, which admittedly I am totally lacking in, we’ll call the new brain examiner Dr. Magic.  From where I live, Dr. Magic’s place of business was about as far as you can go and still be considered to be in Bakersfield.  Or at least it seemed that way to me.  But still, after making the trip, it was far  preferable than dealing with the downtown traffic and the traffic from the hospital near Dr. A.C.’s office.  You hop on the freeway, take one exit, make a couple of turns and you’re there.   Well, you do have to spend some time fighting your way through highway  traffic.  But it’s no big deal.

The worst thing about seeing a new physician is filling out the same old same old introductory paperwork.  I wish someone would invent a system where you only had to do itt once and only once then just pass it on from place to place.  Instead, every time I get slapped with an approval for a new specialist, I also get the thrill of writing down the same bullshit information I’ve already written a thousand times already this year: 

Next of kin, spouses name rank and serial number, insurance number, insurance group, insurance provider, children, children’s diseases, children ages,  your diseases, spouses diseases, parents diseases, living or dead, diabetes or not,  what did they die of, brother’s ages, sister’s ages, brother’s diseases, sister’s diseases, living or dead, any injuries, any past injuries, asthma, smoker or not, alcoholic or not,  medications you take, medications your siblings take, medications you took when you were five, are your parents  alive or dead, are they in good health or poor health, what medications are you on, have you had or do you have any of these one thousand possible medical problems or diseases listed on the next ten pages, do you fart out of your ass hole or your belly button? 

You get the idea as I’m sure you’ve been there and done that.  At least at Dr. Magic’s office, I actually felt they paid attention to me, unlike when I dealt with Dr. A.C.  They  knew why I was there and quickly sent for my previous MRI’s along with the results of the tests performed by A.C.

And not once did Dr. Magic make me feel like I was any less than a person.  He greeted me warmly, a major plus over Dr. AC who doesn’t greet you at all.  She starts right out laying her expertise shit on you and belittling you from the get go.  He didn’t act surprised when I told him I had given A.C. the sack from my medical case so it wouldn’t surprise me if he’d seen this scenario previously.  Before going to Dr. Magic’s office, I had checked his rating against that of A.C.’s on one of those rate a physician web sites.  He had an almost sparkling  rating of 3.5 compared to A.C.’s lowly, lousy, and miserable 1.5.  His lowest rated category was office wait time, but that may not be a bad thing if they are being more thorough with their patients.  But it is ironic when you consider how much time I spent sitting in the waiting room, though I blame Blue Shield for that crap.

After an examination, Dr. Magic decided he wanted me to have some lab tests done so he wrote out a prescription:  CBC, Sed Rate, ANA, Rheumatoid Factor.  I had to Google each of those to find out what they were for but I’m not going into a long winded explanation here.  I’m long winded enough as it is and if you’re really curious, I guess you’ll do the work on your own.  Y’all come back when you’re done with that now, y’hear!

Okay, welcome back.  Dr. Magic also wanted to do some tests on my arms and hands that Dr. A.C. should ,have done if she had been doing her job and asked for approval to do them in the first place.  It was something she should have known if she had paid attention to what was on my initial referral papers.  But because of my HMO Group insurance, everything has to be approved, and since Dr. Magic wanted the tests done that day it meant sitting around waiting for Blue Shield to give it’s stamp of approval, something they no doubt would have to consider at an emergency board meeting called by the Chairman.  Too bad the half assed government of the USA didn’t see fit to give us a public option when they were doing their revamp.

I thought it might take a couple of hours at the most.  I was wrong.  I had arrived there at 8:45 a.m. in the morning and by the time I left, it was exactly 3:50 p.m.  Doing some quick math, that works out to just slightly over seven hours.  But it wasn’t so terrible.  They did have a TV set and at least it wasn’t blasting Fox News.  If it had been, there is no way I could have stayed there that long. 

Why is it so many fucking places that do have a TV set in the lobby  to watch while you wait, find it necessary to kill the brain cells of all Americans with the air-headed propaganda bullshit being sent out over the airwaves by Rupert Murdoch’s personal diarrhea of a network?  But here,  they had on CNN for a short while then switched  to some entertainment shows, some soaps, and the other harmless junk that permeates the weekday television hours. 

At other times during this period I dozed off, brought on because I had a major dizzy spell and that’s what usually happens afterwards.  After not having any spells  for a week, leave it to me to have  one right there in the waiting room.  I thought maybe I should let the doctor know, but I didn’t.

A couple of times I became  annoyed because three times I was asked by totally unaware employees who came out to ask  why I was there.  A quick stop with the receptionist and they could have had that information.  Maybe they didn’t like her or something, hell if I know.  But  I guess they thought I was some weird stalker/rapist or perhaps I was hiding a revolver in my underwear. 

So much for everybody in the office  being on the same page.  Yeah, I supposed I could have fixed it with the Doc to come back at a later date, but he gave me the impression he wanted the tests done ASAP, and besides, an extra  80 mile round trip (40 there and 40 back) in my car with the busted air conditioner, in almost 100  degree heat and with the cost of gas approaching $4 bucks an hour is not on my list fun ways to spend a day.

I did watch an episode of Buffy, The Vampire Slayer (WGTSE), on my Iphone  as well as an episode of Andy Griffith, thanks to Netflix and a the fact that I could actually get a decent AT&T connection, something that is rare in places like this.  There is no signal to speak of at the office of my PCP, nor was there one at Dr. A.C.’s location.  If I had known I’d be there almost 8 hours and would have a decent signal, then I would have taken the adapter cord and watched  movies and Buffy (WGTSE) all day long.  The next time I’ll plan ahead and take the headphones so I don’t pester anybody.

But finally somewhere around 2:30 or 3:00, Blue Shield had wrapped up their board meeting and given their approval for the tests, although the chairman is probably still out there  somewhere crying about paying for it.  The tests were the same ones that Dr. A.C. had done on my legs and back the week or so before, only this time it was on my arms and hands.  And let me tell you, shooting the juice through your legs is one thing. Pulsasting it through your arms is a horse of a different color.  It was painful, but at least this time I could see what was going on and found it curiously interesting.  I guess I’m weird that way.

There were times he would shoot electricity through my skin  there and get no reaction.  Then the guy giving the test would punch some keys on the keyboard, make a few notes and carry on.  He also asked me a few things that made me think he was either the smartest man in the world or that the test was actually telling him something.  Things like, “The problem is more in your left arm than your right.”  Since my left arm and hand have become practically useless that would be an affirmative.  “Do you sleep with your arm in a certain position?”  That would be true as well.  “Do you crack your neck?”  That was true also, although I have to say that with one caveat I forgot to mention.  It is something I had only  begun doing very recently, no more than a week or so ago,  to try and relieve the pain.  And it is not something I did often because basically, it doesn’t work. 

He  also did the test where they stick a needle through your arm and wrists to see how well your nerves are carrying signals across your appendages.  The thing about this was that I didn’t even feel the needles going in.  I have no clue if that’s normal or not,  but I certainly felt the ones Dr. A.C. had stuck in my legs.  Maybe this guy was just a better needle sticker.  Either that or he studied acupuncture on the side.

When the tests were finished though I was sent on my way to find out out about the restults some other time.  Perhaps when they get my lab work back I’ll here something.   Next up, the Renal MRI.  Sure looking forward to drinking that water and not pissing.

The day wasn’t a total waste though.  There was actually a Blockbuster open across the street, which is a rarity these days.  They were selling blu-rays 5 for $20 which is a pretty good deal.  I also bought the three Twilight Movies for The Girlfriend on blu-ray because they were on sale.  Of course, a couple of days later I regretted these purchases when I saw the old bank account was close to being overdrawn.  Later that evening I joined The Girlfriend at her aunt’s house, and we went to have dinner together at The Sugar Mill.  She had a cheeseburger smothered in chili, and I had my usual Tilapia.

My original plan was to go to a second run theater near the doctor’s office, but after spending the entire day there, that kind of ruled that paln  out.  So maybe we can do that next time.  It’s probably just as well that I didn’t go  since the bank account is so low and there’s still about twelve days until pay day. Should have known that before I spent the $56 dollars at Blockbuster.   It’s going to be a long month, but August usually is. 

 

 

Road Trip–Crazy Stupid Love

It was off to the movies again this Saturday.  This time it was The Girlfriend and I and just as it about 90 per cent of the time when we go together, it’s a ladies choice.  And her choice this day was the Steve Carell film, Crazy Stupid Love.

Since it was a return trip to the Reading Valley Plaza, I can pretty much dispense with most of the travelogue portion.  I had already figured out before hand that we were going to be viewing the film in one of the tiny cigar box auditoriums in the back left hand side of the Cinema, just as we did on this occasion. when we saw Cowboys & Aliens.  But did I say cigar box?  This one was more like a sardine can.  I counted less than a hundred seats in the place, and there are probably less than half of them in which you would really want to sit and view a movie.  We were in Screening Room 9. 

 

And I really have to remember to drag my better camera along.  The pictures I took with my I-phone really weren’t worth a squat.  As you can see, there was too much glare from the light on the sign (or there was until I photo-shopped it.  Let it not be said that I’m not creative), and the interior shots were way too dark although it wasn’t really that dark inside.  But I post them here anyway to give you some idea of the size of the thing.  But thankfully, there was no little brat climbing up and down off of her mother’s lap like there was the last time.  In fact, it was a rather peaceful evening as far as any theatrical disturbances go, and one is always grateful of that regardless of the quality of the film itself.  So was Crazy Stupid Love what the title implied it would be, or was it just stupid?

It was a bit stupid and maybe towards the end a teensy bit crazy.  But not in a good way.  It just wasn’t that good of a film, despite it’s lofty 76 per cent critic approval and 85 per cent audience approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes. 

 

It probably helps you’re attitude towards this film  if you’re a really big Steve Carell fan, but I was not born of that ilk.  I like him well enough, but in every film of his I’ve seen he basically plays the big hapless  shmuck.  His shtick gets tiresome after a while, and Carell’s absolute totally straight faced deadpan portrayal  of Maxwell Smart in Get Smart was an abomination that made that particular film a major disappointment for me..  Playing such an unlikable shmuck like Cal that he plays in this film, doesn’t help to make the heart grow fonder

. 

But my low regard for this film wasn’t entirely his fault.  Cal’s wife Emily, played by Julianne Moore wasn’t particularly likable either.  When your husband asks you what do you want for dessert and your answer is “a divorce” it doesn’t exactly endear you to the audience, even one as small as the non-crowd inhabiting Screening Room 9.  Nor does it make you laugh either.  I suppose that Cal jumping out of a moving car shortly thereafter was meant to draw some guffaws, but it doesn’t.

 

Unfortunately for Cal and Emily, upon returning home, their son, Robbie and the baby sitter Jessica quickly find out the happy news:  She’ll be babysitting for either Cal or Emily but not both at the same time.  Truthfully though, I almost wish they had revolved the whole film around Robbie and Jessica because they have the funniest, most sympathetic plotline..  Even before Cal and Emily arrive home, we discover that Robbie, who is 13 has a giant crush and has fallen hard for Jessica who is 17.  And we also find out that when you’re discovered playing fantasyland  by the babysitter, it’s not such a good idea to go into details about what was on your mind that made you raise the flagpole in the first place.  But while Jessica is busy trying to dampen  Robbie’s not so subtle ardor, she is carrying the torch for his father, Cal.   I guess that’s Crazy Love any way you look at it.

 

Cal tries drowning his sorrows at a local tavern, but does it verbally and loud enough so everybody in the bar soon knows he is getting a divorced and that his wife slept with David Lindhagen.  So ladies man Jacob, played by Ryan Gosling, who is as sick of listening to Cal whine as we are, and who takes home a different woman practically every night,  decides to take Cal under his wing to become Mr. Miyagi to Cal’s Daniel San.  It’s bachelor makeover time, and it isn’t long before Cal is picking up women almost as well as his mentor. 

 

Of course, you have to crawl down the runway before you can fly and Cal’s early attempts end in failure, until he hooks up with schoolteacher Kate played with hilarious abandon by Marisa Tomei, who always seems to rise way above the material. 

 

And let's not forget  Hannah played by Emma Stone whom I absolutely loved in Easy A which came out almost a year ago.  Here, she plays a law student who may or may not be in love with another lawyer, but definitely thinks he will celebrate her passage of the bar exam by proposing.  At the outset of the film, she is one of Jacob’s few failures, and is smart enough to see through his phony suave aura, and cliché pick up lines.  Then, to our chagrin,  she disappears for a long long  time until the plot needs her some more.  When Hannah reemerges, it is some time later  and when the lawyer boyfriend fails to propose marriage, she heads straight for the bar to find Jacob and become a one night stand.  Jacob, for his part, seems more than happy to oblige.  Do  you need for me to tell you what happens next?  I didn’t think so.

 

There are about three really big problems with this film that it never overcomes.  Problem one is that we end up not caring about the main story, which is the break-up of Cal and Emily’s marriage, and the continual “will they or won’t they get back together” that is the bulk of the running time.  It would have been nice, just this once, for Carell not to be such a doofus.  He spends way too time moping around and only becomes partially interesting when he is given a makeover by Jacob.  The problem with that is, now instead of a shmuck, he’s a jerkoff just like Jacob is.

Likewise, Emily fares no better.  We never fully understand her reasons for the divorce and for screwing the guy where she works except that she was bored with her life.  All well and good, but while Cal accepts his share of the blame for the failure of their marriage, she never really seems to come to terms with the part her own infidelity played in the disintegration.  So it’s difficult to root for either one, except that we do keep hoping that Cal will grow a pair of balls and take matters into his own hands.  But he never really does, and is controlled more by the circumstances of the script than anything else.

 

Problem two is Jacob.  Ryan Gosling is excellent as the ladies man so this is no knock on him.  He in fact, reminds me in many ways of Jerry Lewis’s alter ego Buddy Love in the original Nutty Professor.  We’re fascinated by him, but despise his treatment of the woman all  at the same time.  So having spent the majority of the film making us love/hate him, we are suddenly suppose to switch gears and just love him?  The change is so sudden, that we don’t really believe it.  We can’t.  Maybe if the film were called Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde but I saw no mysterious secret formula’s being served at the bar. Maybe if we had seen more of that aspect of the plot developing and spent more time  with Jacob when this change of heart is taking place we might have bought into it.  But the script couldn’t allow that to happen because it would……..well that brings us to problem three.

 

Problem three is that the film depends way too much on some major improbable, almost impossible,  coincidences that I cannot relate to you here.  The first one, involving the Marisa Tomei character didn’t bother me too much.  I was too busy laughing (when Kate is on the screen is one of the few times the film makes you laugh)  and gave the movie a pass on that one.  But when the really “big reveal” comes towards the end, the absurdity of it, and the astronomical odds against it  are just way too overwhelming to give it a pass.  We are too stunned to find it funny, and too put out by how ridiculous it is.  If this were a whacked out comedy like The Hangover or Harold and Kumar, it wouldn’t matter so much.  Those films are built from start to finish on the absurdness of improbability.   But this film seems to want take a higher road than that and to send a message, despite the fact that it purports to only be a romantic comedy.  And any good will we might have had earlier on is lost in one big swoop.  Even The Girlfriend who was with me for this trip, found it to be a bit much, although she liked the film overall more than I did.

The bottom line is that the film is sweet and entertaining when focusing on it’s subplots revolving around Robbie and Jessica, and when Emma Stone and Marisa Tomei are up to bat, the movie absolutely sparkles.  But those moments are way too few and far between, with the focus being on the main story line that never gets over the hump.

 

Now putting everything on the old Clyde’s Movie Palace Scale, I have no choice but to give Crazy, Stupid, Love, a not so crazy grade of C.   And if you haven’t checked out Emma Stone’s Easy A, now would be a good time to do so.

 

When we left the theater I grabbed this screenshot of the main concession stand.  Notice the huge painting on the wall.  It’s the coolest thing about Reading Valley Cinema’s so I thought I would share.