A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to 25K

I was trying to coincide post #500 with crossing the 25,000 page loads, but its not going to happen. I'd have to churn out three posts, with one of them being something extra special, in the next 24 to 36 hours, and its just not going to happen... but hey, if you come to the page and you notice the numbers "25,000" on the counter, let me know. Using the honor system, maybe I can get you a prize or something... I've been thinking of doing some sort of Clouds in My Coffee contest or gift or whatever.

FREDDIE ON MY TV
WWE Raw has had this ongoing thing the last several weeks where they've invited special "guest" hosts to run the program, ergo, the script writers just tell the celebrities what matches to announce, as opposed to telling the announcers what match to announce.

This is the reason that Freddie Prinze Jr has been on my television screen for the first time since the first (and thankfully, last) viewing of "Scooby Doo". He's the guest host on Raw tonight, and he's chumming it up with a guy named Santino Morella, which, I'll be honest, is one of the greatest parts about this show... he's stupid, he's hilarious and he's willing to look stupid in an effort to be hilarious.

MOVIE REVIEW!!
"Julie & Julia"... Oh, man I loved this movie. It helped quite a bit that it has Amy Adams, whom I'm in love with, but Meryl Streep is also fantastic... as always. It tells two stories, one being Julia Childs' beginnings in France as a cook and chef, while paralleling the story of Julie Powell, who is looking for something more in her life, and decides to take on the task of cooking all 524 of Julia Childs' recipes in "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" in a single year... and she blogs about it. And both stories are true, with Julia Childs being... well, Julia Childs, and Julie Powell actually having a real blog telling this adventure.


Its Amy Adams, whom I'm in love with. Even with short hair. At one point, I leaned over to The Lovely Steph Leann and said, "I think she's my Colin Firth".

The movie is great, it moves fast (despite its 2:04 running time) and is fun. The Lovely Steph Leann and I laughed throughout, there were a couple of "awww..." moments when I think The Lovely Steph Leann found the theater to be a little dusty, and I think I can now watch Amy Adams in just about anything. And call me old fashioned, and I guess this was only portrayed in the movie because that's how it was in real life... but I like the fact that Julie and Eric, her significant other, are married. Not just dating and living together, but married. Somehow that means something. Chris Messina is awesome as Eric, who goes through just as much as Julie does, trying to cope with his wife under this massive undertaking.

Sidebar... I did watch Amy Adams, whom I'm in love with, in a movie called "The Last Run", a movie I only watched because she was in it and I thought since she's emerged as my favorite actress, I'd catch up on her earlier work... it looked promising, with the two stars billed, in this order, Fred Savage and Amy Adams. It is absolutely terrible. Revolting. Horrible. Despite her name appearing 2nd in the credits, she's in it for about 8 minutes, if that. The rest of the movie is a grown up Kevin Arnold from the Wonder Years gettin' it on with random chicks, which none are Winnie Cooper so therefore, its disturbing.

The main Julie Powell story is based on a book called "Julie & Julia", which I have on audio and look forward to listening to. She also has her own blogsite she still keeps up, which does have a colorful use of the English language, so beware.

THE JOY OF STANLEY TUCCI
So this guy might be creeping up the list of my favorite actors. I don't know that he'd ever top it, cause I'd never mancrush on The Tuch like I mancrush on The Rock, but Stanley Tucci is in everything. And I don't mean "everything" like, Jon Voight and Samuel L. Jackson will take ANY job and is in EVERYthing, I mean "everything" as in, he's extremely versitile.



Check this out... amongst the 82 links he has on his IMDB resume, he's been an assassin ("The Pelican Brief"), he's been an elf ("A Midsummer Night's Dream"), he's been a gangter ("The Road to Perdition"), he's been a jerkweek airport administrator in the movie ranked 17th on TheDave 100, he's been Stanley Kubrick ("The Life & Death of Peter Sellers"), he's been a gay magazine assistant ("The Devil Wears Prada"), he's been a scientist (an abomination), and now, he's been the supportive and loving and loyal husband to Julia Childs, in another excellent performance.

You'll next see The Tuch as a very bad man in the upcoming adaptation of "The Lovely Bones", which, if the movie is as 1/4 as good as the trailer, I'm excited...



WE WAS PO' FOLKS LIVIN' IN A RICH FOLKS WORLD
...We sho' was a hungry bunch. If the wolf had ever come to our front door, he'd a had to brought a picnic lunch... Bill Anderson, 1961

Growing up on old country, when I see a Po' Folks restaurant, this is the song I think of--and why shouldn't I? This is where the restaurant name comes from. Po' Folks is one of those down home country eatin' places that serves collards and hamburger steak and (probably frozen) fried shrimp and fish and greens and not mashed potatoes, but mash'n taters and such.

Essentially, Hurricane Rhett & Lily B mentioned Po' Folks on their blog, and we had this exchange...

Me: Not gonna lie, I love me some Po’ Folks. They have one down in Enterprise, and used to have one in Dothan (maybe they still do). I took dates there. They had this deal with a BOWL of popcorn shrimp and a hamburger steak for $8.95. And it was good.

Lily B: Well I have good news for you d$! There’s one that just opened in my ‘hood, Pelham. It’s right on Hwy 31. Y’all come on down, ya hear?

So naturally, what did I do on Wednesday? I went on down to Pelham and visited not a Po' Folks... but a Po' Folks EXPRESS. Being a fast food conessouir that I am, I immediately recognized the building as an old Captain D's, first by the two front doors facing opposite sides, then by the long bar you have to walk around to get to the counter. It was around 2pm or so when I went, so there wasn't much traffic.


THIS was not the Po' Folks I visited, as this one looks like its in an old Bahama Breeze building. But I looked for the PFE online, and I got nothing.

I got called "sweetie" and "sugar" by the older lady behind the counter, which I not only expected, but welcomed. The server at Quizno's calls you "sweetie" and "sugar", walk away. The server at Po' Folks, however, it perfectly fine doing so. I studied the menu, considered the fish, thought about a burger, but elected to go for the All Day Buffet for only $5.99, which included the lunch bar, the salad bar and dessert.

What is on the buffet, you ask? Well, fried and baked chicken, fried fish, mash'n taters with thick brown gravy, green beans, fried chicken livers and a few other vegetable options. I loaded up my plate with a few pieces of chicken, a piece of fish, some green beans and some mash'n taters (no gravy) and decided to skip the salad bar. Not cause I don't really like salad much, but more because it didn't look too appealing.

While the mash'n taters were exceptional (I had seconds), the rest was... well, eh. It was pretty good. Not great. The dessert wasn't all that great either, with the only dessert option being banana pudding. Banana pudding is something that's hard to win me over on, having grown up with my mother's banana puddin' laced with whole Nilla Wafers. Is there anything better than unbroken, perfecting circular Nilla Wafers lining the edge of your helping of banana puddin'? Number one, baby, number one.

Go for the price, not for the food. Remember this was an "Express", not a real Po' Folks, though I'll be honest with you, I don't know the difference.

And if I told you that I wasn't waiting for someone to ask me a question that I could answer intelligently, and then respond to the question, "Are you a genius?" with "No, but I did eat at a Po' Folks Express last night", and was disappointed when no one did... then I'd be lying.

MOVIE REVIEW!!
"District 9"... I sorta kinda knew what this movie was about, having read about it in EW, but I didn't fully comprehend the storyline, which is as follows: Twenty years ago, a huge spacecraft appeared and permanently hovered above Johannesburg, South Africa. After no response or movement from anyone in the ship, the South African government finally flew up, broke into the ship and discovered hundreds of thousands of aliens living in poverty and malnourished in the bowels of the ship. They were brought down, cared for and put in an area that is called District 9.
In the present day, District 9 is now like an alien ghetto, so the government makes a plan to move the now million-plus aliens to another location, District 10. A mild, meek official named Wikus is put in charge of the re-location project... but of course, all does not go as planned. I won't go any further so as not to spoil the plot for you, but you can read the full synopsis here.

I thought the film was excellent. And The Lovely Steph Leann really liked it, which is unusual for a science fiction/alien film, though she did throw her caveat on it, the dreaded, "Yeah I liked it, but its not something I want to see again", ensuring that she'll never watch the film. Ever. There's a lot of talk about the modern day parallels on apartheid in the film, and even the immigration issues and so on, and yeah, hearing that I can stretch the film's plotline to fit those parameters, but really, just enjoy the movie.

I will caution you, though... the violence is really alien violence (some of the weaponry makes people blow up on site), but there is a lot of language. The F-bombs are in South African English, so the "U" and the "C" sound like they are two "O"s in the middle, but you get the word anyway.
TAX EVASION
While watching WWE Raw, they like to show this Taco Bell commercial where this guy runs around collecting pennies from the "Give a Penny Take a Penny" jars scattered about the city. He's trying to save up 89 cents to buy a taco or whatever, and when he plunks his change down at the Taco Bell, and starts to walk off with his chicken burrito. The girl then says, "There's only 88 cents here", and he reaches over and grabs a penny from the penny jar, and says, "89!".



I have a problem with this. Like, where this guy lives, is there no tax? Do they not charge tax on food? You do that here, you pay 96 cents, not 89. Next, you'd better have the 96 cents, cause there ain't a Taco Bell in this city of Birmingham that would have ANY change not stolen in a "Take a Penny" cup. Finally, how does this guy get his taco before he finishes paying for it?

At the Taco Bell near my home, after paying for your food, you'd actually have time to drive to the airport, catch a plane to Tijuana, have authentic Mexican tacos, fly back, make it through customs with the tequila you smuggled in, then fight 280 traffic before getting the tacos you paid for in the first place. They are not known for their speed at this particular location.

Granted it does say "prices exclude tax", and I really like the fact that the whole basis for the commercial is to advertise how cheap an 89 cent chicken burrito is, and then the fine print says "prices may vary".

LET ME E'SPLAIN... NO THERE IS TOO MUCH, LET ME SUM UP...
I don't really have an ending here. I've kinda goofed on the interweb for the last few minutes just thinking of a clever ending to the this here blog post, and I got nothing. So I'll just tell you that one of my all time favorite group/duos, Watermark, split up a few years back. Well, the wife of the husband & wife duo, Christy Nockels, has just put out her first solo CD. Family Christian Stores has it for $7.99...

Does anyone remember when CDs and DVDs were like, crack expensive? I mean, this CD a few years ago would have been minimum $16.98... I went into a Blockbuster the other day for the first time in forever (I'm not a fan of this place, fyi) and saw brand new DVDs for $4.99 and up. And not really crappy ones, either. Okay, they were crappy movies, but not really crappy, so its an improvement. I was a little shocked.

...and though I haven't listened to it yet, I look forward to it. So there.

I'll see you on the other side of 25,000... and by the way, dear Coffee Drinker, thank you. Thank you for coming back again and again. In borrowing my dear friend Erin the Marine Wife's own phrase, many kind regards to you.