Whateley here with another "bored while the wife is asleep" blog.

It finally happened today, I am officially over this remaking movie craze that Hollywood is in. I could feel the nails start to slide into the coffin back when Keanu did "The Day the Earth Stood Still." Which if you are into classic film, you really owe it to yourself to see the original. Sure it's good all the B-movie Sci-fi trimmings, a theremin, a flying saucer, a big giant robot, and a "Gee-golly" kid to boot. But the acting is pretty good, especially out of Klatu (Michael Rinnie), and its message is actually topical today, and must have been downright scandalous back in the 50's. But the remake was this hippy dippy enviornmental message that completely missed the point of the original, or of it's own movie. For somebody opposed to killing as Keanu-Klatu claimed he was, he sure did murder a ton of people.

Anyhoo I wasn't upset when they started remaking old TV shows, because we got "The Brady Bunch Movie" out of it which was a piece of ironic genus. I wasn't upset when they started remaking horror movies, "Dawn of the Dead" was quite styilish even if it had nothing to do with the original beyond a mall. I wasn't upset when they started redoing classic Sci-fi, that has it's roots going back to the 80's with the big screen non-porn emergence of Traci Lords in "Not of this Earth." I also was ready to be mad but very charmed by "Star Trek" even though in a way it invalidates my two favoriate Star Trek movies, Star Trek II the Wrath of Khan, and Star Trek VI the Undiscovered Country.

Basically I wasn't upset when they were taking the classics and trying to do something new and interesting with them. But it's gone to far. Every week on my usual Sci-fi sites I hear a story about how they are redoing this, or booting this franchise back up. Enough is enough. There was a reason why "A Nightmare on Elm Street" was popular back in the 80's, do we really need to see Freddy hyped up to the new generation played by "The Watchmens" Rorschach? Does "Hellraiser" need to be redone with new F/X that are created by a non-drunk director? Most of the reason these classics (and yes they are classics damn it) sunk anyway wasn't because the original movies or the 3rd sequel were really that bad. It was because the 4th, 5th, 6th etc sequel was bad. Hollywood sucked the life out of these movies like Edward wants to suck the red groovy out of Bella. And now they are standing up over the drained corpses and saying "these need to have a fresh start." Damn it! Just let it go! They are classics because they said something about another time and scene, and hooked into something. Instead of looking back (as people love to do with their rosey colored glasses), why not look forward and try to create something new?

But alas, I expect to much out of Hollywood. Why try something new which could (and probably will) fail. For every "Jeepers Creepers," or "Dog Soldiers," we have twelve dozen crappy horror movies that nobody will watch. Also as sad and pissed as I am I know I'm going to end up seeing the "Predator" remake (probably because it's very likely it will be made in Austin), and I will rent "Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Hellraiser." Hell I'm probably going to buy "Star Trek," especially if they make a version with all the deleted scenes. Why try something new, when an old hit is a sure thing. It's probably why you find so many covers to Beatles songs out there.

Anyway this is my silly little voice saying to Hollywood, please give filmmakers a chance to do something new. I don't want the epic experiences of my childhood remade with computers and young hot stars. If I want to relive my childhood I will pop in the DVD I already own. Give me something new. Sure people are going to experiment and fail, but if you give them money to do this, but every so often they will build the new franchises that you can drain dry 10 years from now. But thats just my opinion I could be wrong.

/rant

Horrible storm is brewing outside, but at least it's broken the heat wave!

Awww... the kitty is gone. Xeo came back from California and the little ball of allergies has gone back to her master.

It did make us want to get a pet, though. Whateley is a pet lover without a pet. But with our schedule the way it is, we can't have a dog cuz we'll end up leaving him alone for 12 hours a day, and the dog will go crazy tearing up the house. Whateley did some research and found Corgis do well being left alone, so that's an option. Otherwise we were thinking of getting a cat, since cats don't need a pack to not go crazy. But having Xeo's kitty for 3.5 weeks did a number on our immune systems. I don't think I'm allergic to the cat hair, but the dander doesn't help my daily stuffy nose.

Anyway, our work schedules will be up in the air soon, and we'll see whether or not we can get a pet. We're also thinking of procreatin' though, and I'm wondering, isn't that like the most ultimate pet? Or as they said in Scrubs, it's like having a dog that eventually learns to talk. Though, I think it's illegal if we leave a baby alone in the house all day.

We've got a kitty!

Temporarily though. Our friend Xeo had to go see his family back in California, so we offered to take care of his cat while he was gone. Rather than stop by his place every day (which, while it would be on the way during a work day, it would be out of the way during non-working days) we opted to cat-sit by bringing her to our house. We were a bit worried since cats can get rather crazy when you move them to a new location, and we fully expected her to stay in her carrier for days.

But she surprised us and after just one day, when we opened the door to the pantry where her carrier, food, and litter box was, she came out and started exploring. When we were at our computers, she came by and hung around our feet. She's such a sweet kitty....

Whateley's been loving it since he's a huge animal lover. Whenever the cat comes around, he drops to his stomach to pet her and scratch behind her ears. I like having an animal around, actually. I didn't really grow up with pets (though sometimes not for lack of trying), but after college, I've always had roommates that had pets. But it's really nice to be doing your thing and then I catch out of the corner of my eye this little furry being just sniffing around.

The only annoying thing is that she's a very furry cat, and no matter how much you brush her, she still sheds fur wherever she goes. So far it hasn't gotten too bad, but it won't be long before we have cat hair all over table legs, sofas, and the carpet. I've been lazy about vaccuuming, but we really can't with a cat around.

Another thing is, I think I'm allergic to her in some way. I don't seem to get the classic allergy symptoms, like itchy, watery eyes, sniffles, and sneezes. But mostly I get stuffy noses, and every morning in the shower, green and/or white gunk comes out of my nose and I can breathe normally for a few hours before it starts getting clogged up again. It's usually worse during work days when I have to step outside, and Texas pollen drives my nose nuts. When I just hang around the house, though, it's usually not as bad. But the past few days, my nose has gotten really stuffy. It's hard to tell, though, whether or not it's the cat or if there's a new type of pollen in the air. After all, with the rainy season upon us, the pollen count has risen.

All that aside, I'm considering whether or not to get a pet. Whateley really wants a dog, but we work such long hours that a dog would go nuts being alone for 13 hours a day. So we were thinking of getting a cat, except that Whateley's somewhat allergic to them and we'd have to keep the house a lot cleaner. Well, having Xeo's cat around for the next few weeks should help us figure out whether or not we can keep a cat. We're thinking of trying to have a kid sometime soon, and we're both very lazy. Having to take care of a pet in addition to taking care of a kid sounds like more work.

We had an eventful game night last night.

Yellowbeard's younger brother, DreadPirate, turned 21 that day, so of course, we got booze. Lots of it. Our friend Kathrenne even got a baby-sitter so she could come over to hang out. Our dinner option came to be a frozen lasagna which we popped in the oven shortly before the game began. We had fruit and salad shortly before the game started, but it wasn't much, and the lasagna was going to take 2 hours to cook. Anyway, the young DreadPirate and Kathrenne started downing shots of tequila. Two different types, actually. And before we knew it, they were hammered out of their minds. It was pretty interesting, actually. DreadPirate is rather notorious for getting his math wrong (what are my attack bonuses?) and rolling really crappy, but apparently, when he's drunk he does both really well.

Once the lasagna was done, we all went downstairs to have dinner. We ate, we poked fun at DreadPirate, we laughed. We had a good time. But Renavato made a point to tell us we should have a bucket nearby, just in case. Which turned out to be a really good idea.

Now, prior to this point, in the middle of the game, Kathrenne opted to leave our gaming table since she was starting to spill things. Before we knew it, she had started to camp our downstairs bathroom.

So while we were a bit concerned since she wasn't coming out to have any dinner, we figured she'll get better eventually. 4 hours later, she finally came out so Xeo could take her home.

But poor DreadPirate... I say, I've never seen anyone puke their guts out that much in that short of a time. This was a lesson to us all: Orange Tequila and regular Tequila shots on a near-empty stomach = Not a good time. We kept thinking the tequilas were tainted or something, but I've had some of it, and both bottles were from previous get-togethers so we've had them before, so I'm guessing it's just old-fashioned "not drinking responsibly." We joked that at least DreadPirate will always remember his 21st birthday. And a lot of people have similar stories for their 21st birthday. Not me, though. Apparently I'm a bit of a square cuz I can't even remember what I did for my 21st. I think I was going out with my then-boyfriend (now ex-, and the relationship didn't end well) and I'm sure I did something with him, though I really can't remember. Maybe I blocked it out. Or maybe it was just a boring birthday. Eh, I think I'd prefer the boring birthday to the birthday that ends in a long prayer session to the porcelain god. I had to lend the poor boy a pair of pants since Whateley's smallest pants would still be too big for him. Too bad I didn't have a really girly pair. =)

I was tempted to get my semi-permanent lipstick on him, but I didn't want to touch his post-vomit lips with it.