Cash vs. Ass (aka Johnny Cash vs. Donnie Darko's butt)

Cash wins.

What a very long weekend. Wednesday started off with a phone call from my dentist at 8 am asking if I wanted to come in early for my 9:30 am appointment. He replaced all the fillings in my front teeth. They were getting all yellow and gross, now they are nice and white. It was definitely worth the shots in the mouth.

After I got back from the dentist, I was hoping to have time to blog (can’t remember what I wanted to write about, though) but it was “go go go.” We wanted to get to Brisbane early enough to dump the kids off and go see a movie or something. So Wednesday afternoon we went to see “Walk the Line” in lovely South San Francisco.

“Walk the Line” was really good. Joaquin Phoenix was captivating, as always. The movie had a good enough story, I thought, that it didn’t really have to be about a celebrity. It’s central focus was a love story. But don’t let that scare you away. I liked the way the movie gave me conflicted feelings about Cash and Carter. (I’m only talking about the movie, here as I confess I am no Johnny Cash historian). I felt bad for Cash’s first wife and kids and also for Carter’s kids. But I also felt bad for Cash for being so crushed out on Carter when he was already married with a family. Anyway, it’s a good movie.

On Turkey Day, we escaped for a little while and went to see Jarhead. It deviated quite a bit from the book. Some of the changes probably needed to be made (like combining some characters) just to make the movie easier to follow. They did add a lot of stuff that wasn’t in the book. Like a pretty dramatic training accident. I have no idea why they did this. Maybe the stuff they added happened to someone else, somewhere else or it was completely fictionalized, but it wasn’t in the book.

As far as the movie for the movie’s sake, it was okay. Not great, not horrible. Fans of Jake ( /raises hand) should be pleased. You get to see a lot (ahem) of him and there’s no feeling dirty, because he’s of age(if barely). I thought he did a good job. Originally I thought he might be a little wacky for the part, but he’s an actor and pretty good so I think he pulled it off.

Speaking of wacky and Jake Gyllenhaal. Anyone see the trailer for “Brokeback Mountain” aka the gay cowboy movie? Either the trailer is horrible or the movie is going to be. I was trying to keep from laughing hysterically, but I kept thinking why would Gyllenhaal do this movie (yes, yes he was in Bubble Boy, but that was early in his career), then I saw it was directed by Ang Lee. Then I knew it had to be serious. Anyway, I cannot wait to see this film.

Today, while we were still in Santa Cruz we ate at a place called “Tiny’s.” I was fearful at first because the place was filthy with old people. After we got menu’s I figured out why. “Senior Discount.” The menu said, “Make sure to say ‘senior size it’ when you place your order.” It wasn’t too bad. Maybe a little pricey for a greasy spoon. I had three eggs scrambled with mushrooms, canadian bacon, and tomatoes with “country” potatoes on the side. Davey had two eggs scrambled with corned beef hash. I always warn him about corned beef hash, but he still orders it. He says this way, when it’s time for the next Y2K, he’ll already be used to eating dog food.