thanksgiving 2.0

so far weekend has been way fun! i got to take my niece and nephew to the park, where i got to watch my niece carry on my grand tradition of playground antics involving : giving other children the stinkeye, not sharing communal toys scattered in the sandbox, and being very suspicious of other chillun'. that's the spirit! my nephew is a very jolly, cherubic lad, the turkey emerged from the oven with a uniform burnish and was crisp-skinned and juicy of breast, and the sweet potato pecan pie defies superlatives. look at it! isn't she a beaut? i also know now that in the future, 17lbs of turkey is far too much for 7 people and 1 toddler. i now have a mountain of leftovers to contend with. and some lovely roasted bones for turkey stock.

i also got hit by a car yesterday while on my bike conducting errands. to be completely truthful, i hit the car. but it wasn't my fault! i was biking straight along the danforth, keeping a watchful eye for errant car doors, and a car, turning down a side street, didn't see me and i plowed right into it, dented the car, bruised up myself, sprained some fingies, and bonked my chin on the windshield. i was really unsure about how to proceed, as i didn't know whether i was in the right or wrong, and so i was reluctant to give my information. now that i know that basically, if i'm going straight, i have right of way, then i can go apes**t next time and freak out. especially when the person says: "oh, i could tell you didn't see me". that's not my problem!!!

i also got to hang with my dad and the woman he married, and caused a bit of a ruckus at macdonald's because the manager was watering down the o.j. i'm definitely NOT one of those people who thinks i'm too good to eat at mcdonald's. sometimes, you just want a big mac combo with sweet'n'sour sauce for your fries, and a filet-o-fish chaser (my standard order). i know what i'm getting, and it tastes pretty good at certain times or places. what i really DON'T like, is when you pay for food at places that are crappy chains masquerading as proper restaurants. ie. jack astor's, kelseys, boston pizza, appleby's, alice fazooli's and most other big box franchises. i don't think macdonald's is trying to hide what it is. whereas those places, charge real-restaurant prices, for food that comes out of a can/box/vacuum seal.

i saw the new scorsese flick, "the departed". i'm currently d/l the torrent for the chinese movie on which it was based "infernal affairs" as apparently i either watched it way long ago, or never saw it at all. a welcome return to form for scorsese, it was way more entertaining than "the aviator" (which was good, but not great) and "the gangs of new york" (which was boring and not very good). aside from the spielbergian final shot with the heavy handed symbolism (paging paul haggis!) it was fast, entertaining, well shot and highly engaging. some nice editing work and a great pace. i don't think anyone can rein in jack nicholson at this point, but he gave a wonderful performance that only reverted to cariacture on one or two occasions.

i like the departure from "infernal affairs" in condensing the two love interests into one woman, which adds a neat psychological dimension (who's the father of the baby???). i also liked the themes of brotherhood, fraternity, fatherhood, etc. (bro-in-law brought up an interesting point...was nicholson the father of them both???). mark wahlberg continues to impress me as an actor, and he and alec baldwin had the best lines in the movie. i never used to "get" leonardo dicaprio's appeal (in the teen-beat sense), but he really won me over in this movie. he's a fantastic actor and there's a coiled up masculinity in there that i never saw before, but that really came out in this flick.

i also saw an interesting slicked-up, adrenaline pumped trailer for "300" that totally won me over, it's getting added to the list. "the blood diamond" looks way heavy-handed though. i saw a preview for that movie "bobby" which i think features too many actors to be an effective piece. large ensembles like that tend to just move from scene to scene to scene without really the time/effort taken to develop characters. i'm also highly suspect of emilio estevez as both a writer and director. i mean, if he had it in him, what's he been doing all these years since mighty ducks, huh?

fin.