How I Spend My October: Thoughts on Wine, Fall, and Peter Weller

I would like to take this opportunity to properly apologize to Mr. Peter Weller in my post "Return of a Classic".  When listing other films he participated in I forgot to mention David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch.  Instead, in a frantic mess to think of a third film outside of the RoboCop franchise I listed Top of the World with Tia Carrere and Joe Pantilano.  Although I'm sure Top of the World is a great film (I caught maybe five minutes of it on a Wednesday afternoon on HBO) featuring actors that you remember from one other movie but that's about it, I myself would rather be known for a 1990's film adaptation to a book from the Beat era.  I know it doesn't matter.  But if Pete ever happens to read this (I really respect your work, Pete.  I even bothered to watch that History Channel special on French history you hosted.  Top notch work Mr. Weller) I want him to see and know that fans remember only the great films he's done, rather than the mediocre ones lost in the haze of the late 90's.  Then again, how many of us would want to be remembered for Buckaroo Bonzai (Maybe John Lithgow)?

On second thought, please don't read this, Pete.

I digress.

Welcome back to the blog.  Hope that everyone had a great week.  Mine went pretty well.  The weekend was very pleasant, given the fact that I had no obligation to work under the Tea Lords.  We had some great October weather here in St. Louis.  On Saturday, my long time friend and collegue, Matt Lewis, and I went with his parents out to Stone Hill winery in Herman, Missouri.  If you haven't been and have the means to go, I recommend it.  Herman is a pretty small town about a little over an hour west of St. Louis.  Very beautiful this time of year.  Lots of trees and hills.  Great place to stash your winery.  Anyway, took a tour of the wine cellar, which wasn't as expansive as I recall.  Yes, although this was my first time going to any winery since I've turned twenty-one, I did go with my parents once many years ago.  Probably when I was nine or ten.  All I remember was I played something like Wario World on my old gray brick Game Boy in the car on the way there and was pretty bored.  Watching your parents taste wine isn't the most fascinating thing in the world when your in elementary school.  But now, since I'm of age, the experience is worth the long car ride (Not much has changed, though.  I still played Game Boy, The Legend of  Zelda Ocarina of Time on my friend's 3DS, and he played on his Motorolla Xoom tablet). 

When we get there, we pay a couple bucks, Matt and I get our hands stamped with "21+" since we look like children and wait in the gift shop until it's time to take the tour.  We take it, get a little history about Stone Hill (Which I will not divulge in at the current moment.  I haven't the time nor patience right now).  Of course, at the end, we get to taste the wines.  We all gather round a circular bar thing, with two older people in the middle serving wines.  Now, they pull out the first wine and start pouring a little sample into each of our plastic cups.  The old guy pours for first Matt's parents, then Matt, then he gets to me and pours and says something like, "Are you even old enough to drink this?"

My first thought, "You've gotta be kidding me".

I show the guy my "21+" stamp.  Still, the old man is unrelenting, "Who stamped your hand?"  I pull out my wallet show my ID, the guy finally believes me, we all move on with life.  Matt believes he was trying to be funny.  I think I should have got into a brawl with him right there.  The odds were most certainly in my favor.

I've had to deal with this for years.  Even before I turned twenty-one.  When you're young, its frustrating because everyone who is young wants to be old.  And I've been told by older people when they see my frustration, "It'll come in handy when you're older.  You'll be old but still look young."  The usefulness of that fact cannot come any sooner.  The day I look like a twenty-one year old, it'll be great.  Then I'll stop my complaining.  Until then, I'd rather people not think I'm a teenager.

They had some really great wines.  I ended up buying a bottle of white wine called, "Vignoles".  Normally I would be more into the dry red wine, but none of the wine they sampled was really like that.  Even the reds were fairly sweet.  Even though it's somewhat uncharacteristic for me to like a pretty sweet white wine, this one was very good and had pineapple notes.  I love pineapple.  I was sold.  Matt on the other hand bought a bottle of the Cream Sherry, which in our opinion, had a similar taste to whiskey, without the "burns the whole way down" feeling.

After we bought our wine we decided to head back home.  All in all, a pretty enjoyable Saturday.  They are pretty hard to come by.  A typical Saturday would involve me zoning at Teavana for seven hours, but maybe we'll get into that another time.  At the moment, neither of us are truly interested in discussing it.

All right, I need to go do some other things today.  Particularly showering. 

Thanks for stopping by.  Hopefully we'll both be back soon.

More Universal Discussions

Currently listening to:                 Elliott Smith.  From a Basement on the Hill.

Remarkable album, really.  About a year ago I finally initiated my Elliott Smith fandom and purchased Roman Candle.  It's pretty bare bones as far as instrumentation, which makes for nice driving music.  The stuff he wrote at the end of his life is probably the best.  If you ever get around to it, listen to this album or Figure 8.  Not that I've been sent here by the record companies to convince you to up the sales of Elliott Smith albums.  That's not what it's about.  It's just fantastic music, and of course Youtube will have all of his songs.  Check it out, jam out.  Realize the sweet sound of Elliott and his heartfelt songwriting.

So it's the middle of the week.  The slow part here, and what that means for you is more random posts about life, the universe, and everything.

What if I had wrote, "...and everyfig"?  Would you have thought, "Geez, can't this guy review his own work to make sure it makes sense?  What a goober!" or would you have thought, "He is going to talk about every single fig.  Remarkable"?

It's been a long weekend, readers, but rewarding in some respects.  On Thursday nights I get together with a group from church to have dinner and Bible study.  It's called Pulse and mainly consists of twenty-something graduates who are now making it as young professionals in the world.  Every so often we get together to do some outreach and this last Saturday we went to a little park off of Locust and 14th to cook and serve breakfast to the homeless who live around there.  Although getting up at 4:30 am to get ready and make it there by 6 is not my favorite thing, seeing people getting loved and fed is well worth it.  We had over a hundred people come to line up and eat the fresh bacon and eggs we grilled right there on little camper grills.  We also cut up some fruit and handed out juice and water.  It's wonderful to see their joy and to know that this is exactly what Christ was doing all those years ago: serving those who are left to the side and forgotten and making them feel they are worth the time and work.

Rest of the weekend consisted of a lot of Teavana.  Which is always a lovely experience.  There I'm serving a different sort of people, people with money with my goal being to help them drop some more money.  Gotta love retail.

We do have some new tea stuff, which I guess is cool.  I'm not going to buy it.  Except for "Slimful Chocolate Decadence" oolong tea.  I hate the name, but the tea is so good.  They should call it, "Mounds Bar Tea".  "Slimful Chocolate Decadence" is a name you give some food product women would eat (No misogynist).  Seriously though, first it has the word, "Slimful".  Already, it's saying, "Hey, you there!  You fat?  Feel fat?  You won't after this!" Next it has chocolate.  We all know that chocolate is catnip for women.  Finally, "Decadence".  That sounds like, "Oooh, your doing something your not supposed to (but enjoying it), but it's okay because we preceded this entire statement with 'Slimful'".   My mom bought cereal last week.  She bought "Special K Granola".  I'm already confused about my masculinity due to the foods I'm eating.

Dear Teavana,
Stop selling to just women on this one and call "Slimful Chocolate Decadence" "Mounds Bar Fun".  Everyone loves fun.  Name someone who does not love fun.  Okay, that person sucks, name someone else.  Good.  Copyright infringement with "Mounds Bar" from Mars Bar company?  Fine.  Call it, "Tropical Chocolate Mountain Race".  See, I threw in race to slip in that, "You won't be fat if you drink this".  Genius.  Take care Tea Lords,

XOXO
Michael Lee

No more word on the elevators or bathroom stalls.  I let you know as further news breaks.

And I think we're done for the day.  Thanks for coming and hanging out.  See you about the same time next week.

My Window. Mine.

All right, so as all of my followers (you know who you are) know, I am working part time in an office at a publishing company.  I also mentioned the fact that, never in my working experience have I had the opportunity to have a window.  I've been caged up in many jobs (namely the call center and Teavana), but this is quite the break through.  Not only do I have my own little room in suite 670, but I also have a very large window which allows for a lot of natural light.  So I can sun on the window sill for about an hour in the morning like a lizard.  Anyway, here's a snapshot out of that window.

















Mostly just a nice view of construction at the moment.  To the right there's a little park.  There's some sort of strange steel orb atop the building at the top right.  I would like to know what that is for (Gladitorial cage matches?).   Anyway, I'm happy and thankful to have it.  Hopefully one day I'll be able to have an office for a salaried job.

Also, haunted floor number five strikes again (See, "Quick Catch-up in My Pajama-jams").  As my boss and I were leaving on Monday, the elevator stops right on floor five.  Doors open, but no one is there.  I will figure out this mystery...

(As well as the mystery of those stalls)

Have a great Wednesday.

Why Is It Called October? Does That Mean Eight "Bers"? What's a "Ber"?

I came home after work today to a weird smell.  It was everywhere in the house.  I knew it had to be coming from the kitchen, but even as I walked down the hallway toward my room the smell was still strong, clutching onto dear life to my nosehair-smell-receptors, or whatever you call those things that make the brain think it's smelling (I'm not a biologist.  Leave me alone).  Well, as it turns out, the smell was that of my father making deviled eggs, something I've never been into, and something he's made maybe three times since we've known one another (which is nearly 25 years).  That's when I think to myself, "Ah, that's why the entire house smells faintly of farts".  But not offensive farts mind you, like dainty farts, ones you can deal with for a little bit, but if they linger too long it becomes rather unpleasant.  These were hanging around for too long.  So I grabbed six sticks of incense.  So far I think I've made a big push in the smell war.  My room has a force field of incense, and when I went to the bathroom down the hall to throw some garbage away I noticed my incense smoke there too.  Success.

Hi everyone!  How's everyone's week so far?  You say it's only Monday?  You say it's Columbus Day?

....

COLUMBUS DAY???!!

My goodness, I nearly forgot!  I suppose there's still time to buy my Columbus Day gift (a nose hair trimmer, a bag of raisins, a copy of the Constitution, and hand sanitizer, wrapped neatly and placed in a hand made basket, then set on a stranger's doorstep).  Have the children already had their Columbus Day activities?  You know, "Bag the Raccoon"?  I remember some good times with "Bag the Raccoon".  Oh! And "Mayo Slosh".  Precious memories.

But seriously, I never really understood Columbus Day.  My parents were always off because it's always been some sort of "government holiday".  Preposterous.  Some Portugese, Spanish guy happened to show up in the Carribean and ruined the lives of millions of Native Americans for something like 400 years.  "Hey, white people, check out these weirdos!"  Dude didn't even show up in the States.  And school never gave us the day off.  All my life, never had Columbus day off.  My parents always did.  I realized this injustice at about ten.  I told my parents how insanely ridiculous the holiday is.  I mean, I don't even care what the stupid holiday means, just so long as I get to sleep in half the day and then play N64 for the rest of the day.  Fine by me.  That, good people, should be the true tradition of Columbus Day.

Columbus Day...You can go hang out with Groundhog Day, St. Patrick's Day, and Flag Day.  You dork.

Speaking of holidays, Halloween is coming up, and I do love Halloween.  You get to dress up as your favorite whatever (but don't dress as Bob Dylan.  Nobody will know or care who you are), the weather is fantastic, there's apple cider (actually fall should be known as, "The Great Apple Massacre".  Apple can't catch a break.  He's smashed repeatedly; he's juiced; he's baked into pies.  That in and of itself is horrifying.  We shouldn't worry about the beef industry, think about your dear pal Apple.  Literally, he's mutalated.  How many apples you peal this week?  I knew it.  But you didn't care, because Apple can't speak.  Apple CAN'T speak.), and most of all...there's terrible 80's horror movies on TV.

Now, let it be known 90's will always be my favorite decade (Tied with the 1960's), but the 80's do have some of the most ridiculous horror movies ever, making them quite possibly the best.  Evil Dead II, Day of the Dead, Return of the Living Dead, Nightmare on Elm Street, Critters, Child's Play, Re-Animator...the list goes on.  These movies are absolutely fantastic to watch, and coincidentaly enough, my Windows Media Player is on shuffle and just happened to turn on the Gorrilaz song with the Day of the Dead sound byte at the beginning ("M1A1").

Well, thanks for spending your time on the blog.  Appreciate the visit.  You're always welcome, no matter your race or nationality or sex (I'm not like that punk Columbus). 

Have a great week.  Peel an apple and pop in Gremlins for me. 

Return of a Classic

Did I mention that I'm pretty excited about the RoboCop remake? Because I am.

For those of you who do not understand, I'll start from the beginning. In the late 1980's there was a little sci-fi movie called RoboCop. It was a gritty tale of a Detroit City cop getting (quite literally) blown to bits by thugs during a bust. His name is Alex J. Murphy, played by the famous Peter Weller (Known for such classics as Buckaroo Bonzai, Screamers, and Top of the World). And since Mr. Murphy was blasted to pieces, the OCP corporation decides to go through with their new project. They take the remains of Alex Murphy and give him robot prosthetics and a partial robot brain. He has lost his humanity, becoming almost entirely machine.

Almost.

See, although he's mostly a robot, he still remembers. He remembers his wife, his son. And more importantly, his assailant. And what he finds later is that the thug who killed him is also in with the lead owner of OCP. It's up to RoboCop to bring down the thugs and the corporation, with his sweet hand gun that fits conveniently into his robo-leg and his finely tuned sense of justice.

Now, with that riveting description typed down for your review, I will explain that as a child I loved RoboCop. The movie was far too violent for a child, so I never really watched the movie. I had action figures, and there was a TV series which came much later. Only in the last four years did I purchase and actually watch RoboCop in it's entirety. Best use of two hours.

As you may already know, there were many fine science fiction movies in the 1980's. There was Aliens with Sigourney Weaver, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, The Thing featuring the alpha man Kurt Russell (Did you know that they're remaking that? Preposterous), The Terminator, and handful of others. But nothing compares to RoboCop. Nothing.

How far along they are into this remake, I haven't a clue. I hope it's soon. After the sequels RoboCop 2 and RoboCop 3, and a few short lived TV shows, I believe that the name of RoboCop was ruined. The image, the franchise, was mocked and should have been sealed up tight and remembered for what was, and who RoboCop was, right there in 1987.

But RoboCop is being given another chance. Another chance to blow creeps away. Another chance to use his robo-wit, robo-reflexes, and robo-charm. José Padilha, don't fail me now.

That's it today. Seriously, I know. Next time I'll whip up something intellectual. Or you can send your topics via email at canyon.behind.her@gmail.com. I may or may not get to your topic, but since no one else will send one, yours will probably be chosen to be on Revenge of the Living Blog. I may even mention your name.

Also, you can follow me on the wonderful world of Twitter. Yes that's right. You can follow me @nehemiah810. If you do, you'll see topical tweets like:

"I wish everything could smell like this cake I'm eating."

"Not much for divination, but Phil prophesied about my future wife. She's in Portland and she might be asian."

"Just saw a Propel commercial with Cindy Crawford. Glad to see she's still getting work."

"Important announcement: Good Burger is on ABC Family. That is all."

"Made it through security. Security lady was impressed I have my SNES."

"I finally had that dream last night where I'm about to go on stage to play bass and I'm in my underwear. It was less awkward in the dream."

So follow me, and attain all the rich juice of my life. Because it's there. You just have to have a keen mind to really absorb it and appreciate it.

Alright. Seriously. I'm gone.