So I finally watched War of the Worlds last weekend. Unfortunately, it was the Tom Cruise one. Spoilers abound so don't read the rest of the post if you haven't seen it. However, I will have to warn you that it will seriously try your patience.

It could've been good. It could've been a contender. But instead they decided to pelt us with one annoyance after another. Seriously, I couldn't have written more unlikable characters.

Daughter: Hysterical little girl. The pen's out of ink! OMG everybody panic! I so badly wanted her die. Granted, I haven't been around many children while the world was under attack by aliens but I think her complete lack of even one ounce of courage was a bit over the top. At least the writers didn't completely fall into the stereotypical cliche of having her mature even a little bit at the end of the movie. Yes, she is the same annoying little girl throughout the entire movie.

Son: Stereotypical teenage boy with oodles of angst. Ooh, he gets out of the car with his headphones on and totally ignores his dad. Now that's an angry kid! And then he refuses to catch the baseball thrown by his dad. What a badass! All testosterone and no brains. I wanted him to die so much. Then bring him back to life and kill him again. What was the point of his character besides bludgeoning the audience to death with his stupidity? I was so pissed when find out he's still alive at the end.

Dad: Surprisingly the only main character that I didn't hate. He's a pretty vanilla guy with nothing particularly interesting about him. Normally that's a bad thing in a movie but it's a complement in this one. I felt really bad for him though. Not because aliens kidnapped him and blew his house up but because the aliens failed to kill his kids and he'll have to put up with their crap for the rest of his life.

Man, I'm still pissed that they wasted their opportunity to make a good film.

Not! This year has sucked for me already. Let's start in chronological order:

12/30:
Somehow my flight back to Atlanta didn't suck. And the MARTA ride home didn't suck. Things are looking up!

Unfortunately, I see an announcement in the elevator and realize that I'm potentially screwed out of $500 because my homeowners insurance company failed to send out the fax that I requested earlier in December.

My cable modem sporadically fails.

12/31:
Cable sucks more today.

Annoyed that two of my better friends decide to spend their NYE with someone they know I have major issues with.

I go out for dinner before heading to a bar and I gotta crap real bad after eating. The restaurant's bathroom isn't looking so hot so I take a quick trip home to poop and get my coat which I foolish left at home earlier. I turn on the bathroom lights and both light bulbs blow at the same time. I'm poopin' with the dim closet and shower lights.

Auburn wins. I root against the SEC every chance I get.

1/1:
Barely healed emotional wounds get unexpectedly poked and prodded. Not happy about this.

Georgia wins.

Cable barely works at all now.

1/2:
I wake up early and can't fall back asleep.

I decide to get an early start on my day. My very needy cat recognizes that I'm back to my work schedule and is not happy. She pees on my bed in protest.

I yell at my cat and throw everything (except the cat) into the washer. Washer makes loud racket during the spin cycle because the load is unbalanced. I did manage to fix my cable modem during this time though.

I go outside. It's damn cold.

I get to work. I haven't worked in like two and a half weeks.

Lunchtime. Everyone decides to go to Fuddrucker's. I don't really like Fuddrucker's. It's not that the food is bad but it's not a great value and it's not gonna help me drop a few pounds.

I call up my insurance company. I'm almost definitely screwed out of $500.

I go to Target after work. Strangely, my car doesn't respond to any of the remote buttons. I use the key to open the door and the alarm blares loudly. There's like four people around and I feel like a dumbass.

From Target, I head across the street to Costco to pick up a few items. They don't have any regular incandescent bulbs for the bathroom light that I don't really have much faith in right now. I decide to take a chance on pricier compact fluorescents. I'll be really pissed if these blow too. However, I did find that they finally have frozen jumbo shrimp.

I get home all ready to make spicy seafood soup and I didn't have as many scallops as I thought. Screw it, it's a Michelina's night for me.

I pop in the new light bulbs. Not as bright as I had hoped. I guess I can deal with that.

Happy 2008!

So I'm off all week because I need to burn an assload of vacation days and I can't carry over and I spend a good portion of it recovering from this crazy ass cold I got from one of my little cousins or from someone on the airplane. This kinda sucks. I'm also doing the every Wednesday off thing for November and December. And then I'm off the last two weeks of the year. Basically, I'm working eight days in December.

Speaking of my cold... I visited the folks in NJ over Thanksgiving weekend. That was the worst flying experience I can recall. Much worse than the time I got stuck in Orlando overnight because Newark was closed due to a blizzard because at least that time I was all comfy in the airport and then the somewhat comfy off-airport La Quinta or whatever it was.

The departing flight to Newark sat on the tarmac for 90 freaking minutes. Luckily I napped for most of it but I was pretty pissed when I woke with all sweaty, with nasty morning breath and feeling pretty damn claustrophobic in my tiny little seat, to the captain telling us we'll be delayed potentially another two hours. Yes, two more fucking hours in this crappy airplane. Hurray. Then this asshole behind me whips out his cellphone and proceeds to call everyone in his company. Dude, just give it up. You ain't getting any work done by talking on the phone. Asshat. Luckily, it was only another 30 minutes or so before we took off. Ridiculous.

The flight back to Atlanta was much worse. I woke up Saturday with a god awful sore throat and knew I was in deep crap. I felt like ass on Sunday and managed to get a couple of hours of sleep in before my flight. I ate some food (turkey soup) and took a Sudafed to cut down on the congestion. So then I've been watching the football game in the waiting area for about half an hour, wishing I could just die and sleep for a few days, when the gate agent announces that take-off is delayed for an hour due to poor visibility in Atlanta. Fuck it all to hell! Luckily I stuffed a pocket full of tissues before I left so I'm prepared to wait it out in misery. But tissue or no tissue, I was a little self-conscious about vigorously blowing my nose in a packed waiting area full of strangers. I mean, damn, that's kinda gross. So I sat there for basically two hours dabbing the wet drippings off my nose. Slightly less gross I guess but pretty damn miserable.

So now we get on the plane. Somehow, we actually manage to take off quickly but I'm still dabbing at my wet nose and wanting to sleep but feeling super cramped in those freaking seats. Miserable, I tell you. The dude next to me is watching a movie on his iPod Touch. I have an iPod Touch. Why the hell didn't I think of that? I'm stuck trying to read my book but I can't freaking concentrate on it.

So a long hour and a half later, we start our initial descent and the pressure in my ears won't freaking equalize. Crap, I forgot that nasal congestion might cause that to happen. My ears really want to explode. So here I am, yawning desperately and holding my nose and exhaling in a fruitless attempt to clear my ears, dabbing my nose, coughing like a typhoid patient and digging through my pockets for new tissues. Everyone around me must have hated me. I know I would. All the while, the iPod Touch dude next to me (who I suspect maybe not be entirely straight, not that there's anything wrong with that) stares out the window on the other side of the aisle for like minutes at a time. Dude, how about have some damn social skills and not stare in my general direction when I'm like an inch away from you. Christ.

We finally land another half hour later and I gotta pee. Bad. Wouldn't you know it, we taxi for like ten freaking minutes while we tour the entire airport. Assholes. I finally get off the airplane and by now it's like 12:30AM and I'm unsure if MARTA is still running so I speed pee and make a bee-line for MARTA (thank god I never check luggage). Great, assholes in front me on the escalator are enjoying the scintillating ride and in no particular hurry to go anywhere so I miss the inter-terminal rail by like 10 seconds. It literally closes its door right as I step off the escalator. Now I can try to walk from Terminal A to main terminal or whatever they call but the sign says the next train is coming in a minute so that's stupid. 30 seconds later, the sign changes the ETA to 1:30 minutes? WTF?! 30 seconds later, back to 1:30. Ass! I watch it count down again for 10 or 20 seconds and, lo and behold, the train magically appears. That sign is worthless, I tell you!

A few minutes later, I arrive at the MARTA stop with Breeze card in hand and there's a sign on the door saying the last train departs at 12:45. I look at my cell phone. 12:52. Son of an ass! I'm thinking I stuck cabbing it back to town but I figure the doors still open so it couldn't hurt to go in and investigate. I tap my card and the gates open. Well, it wouldn't open if trains weren't running right? Right? Yup, I take the escalator up and there's a few dozen people waiting for the train. Phew! I get home and it's 1:15. 6.25 freaking hours to get home. Awful.

So basically, this long winded post can be summarized by saying I got screwed at every possible point of my transportation except for MARTA. Well I guess airport security was pretty quick too so that was good. And traffic was good on the NJ Turnpike so I didn't get screwed there. Whatever.

I saw a few clips of Fox Business Channel on Youtube. They suck. Are they gonna explain what an ADR is everytime they mention one? I guess they really are going for the total newbies. The ticker is grouped by sector. Good idea on paper but retarded in practice. Plus their big name is Neil Cavuto and despite getting his start in the Carter administration, he lost all credibility by taking a wide right turn into the arms of Faux "News"...

Which leads me to Larry Kudlow. How the hell does anyone but the rightest of right wingers stand to watch this guy? I turn the channel everytime he's on and I don't go back. Why the hell does he have Ann Coulter as a frequent guest? She's a right wing publicity whore with nothing of substance to add. What's her lefty counterpart? Al Franken? Can you imagine the Faux "News" headlines if Franken made appearances like she does? What a douche. Hey, Fox, please steal this guy from CNBC. Pretty please with an immigrant about to be deported on top?

Anyway... The Larry Kudlow Drinking Game:

1 sip every time he slams the Democrats or the liberals
1 gulp every time he praises Bush or mentions "The Greatest Story Never Told"
Finish your drink if Ann Coulter is a guest
1 shot every time he mentions free market economics
2 shots every time he praises Reagan

So I just finished watch the movie Babel. Jesus that was depressing. Yeah, it worked out ok for most of the characters but, damn, it made me want to kill myself. And 2.5 hours? Mein gott. The plot twists were too predictable except for the Japan one.

***Spoilers below***
Raise your hand if you felt creeped out watching that Japanese chick get all nekkid. Speaking of creepy... that scene of the kid jerking off. This is a fucked up movie.

Could the Mexican storyline be anymore obvious? Man, who didn't suspect that the nephew would be a total fuck-up. I would've opened up a can of whoop ass on that asshole if I was Amelia. And why didn't the border cop smell the alcohol on his breath when he first pulled up?

Did anyone else wish those annoying bus passengers get shot too? Man, I was praying the kid would somehow escape and unload on the gringos. I hope I'm not that selfish and crotchety when I get old.

The more I think about it, the more I hate this movie. The directing, acting and editing was good though so I guess it's just the writing I hated.

Oh yeah, 2.5 hours! Fuckers.

Ok, who didn't see this coming? The Mets sucked for like three weeks and managed to drag it out for as long as possible but it was inevitable. We freaking suck! Jesus Christ, the fucking Devil Rays deserve the playoffs more than we do.

Hey Omar, we want a pitcher, not a belly itcher! Get us about 12 of them while you're at it. Heads better roll this offseason. Totally unacceptable.

We gotta get Milledge and Gomez some damn playing time. We actually won with them in the lineup over the summer. Send Shawn Green into retirement. Alou has been great when healthy but he's not the answer for more than maybe another two years so go get something of value for him. Trade Delgado for a bag of balls. Get Maine and Smith on a training program so they don't suck wind after the all star break. Have The Jacket spend the offseason with Pelfrey and Humber. And blow up the bullpen for god's sake. Mota, Schoeneweis - gone. Heilman - give him a chance in the rotation. Wagner - put him on HGH or something. Jesus, I never thought I'd see the day when I'd be pining for Royce 'Fuckin' Ring.

Will the asshole(s) in the 6th floor bathroom at work please stop sprinkling your pubic hair all over the urinals? For God's sake, that's freaking disgusting. Wear some damn underwear and take a shower in the morning. Damn. What's with these people?

I know all presidents lie and smile while doing it but W is the biggest asshat of all of them.

Bush pledges to address abuses by FBI.
Oh please, does anyone actually expect he'll doing anything about this except to cover his ass?

The administration tells scientists attending international meetings not to discuss polar bears, climate change, or sea ice.
Classic W. If they don't agree with you, make sure they can't talk. What an asshole.

Tonight, I did the hardest thing that I've had to do in a few years. I've dreaded it for a while but I've known for a long time that it was going to come to this. I guess I was lying to myself and thinking that I was just being the pessismist that I am but deep down I knew how it was going to play out. I didn't want to face it until now but there was always a part of me that knew it had to be done and I finally freaking did it. I feel absolutely horrible about it and I would've given up everything I currently own and would ever own for a better outcome but life sucks and it is what it is and there's nothing we can do about it. I never believed in destiny and all that crap but on this particular night, I do. I believe it was destined to end horribly and I feel great now that I've dealt with it.

I don't know how I'll feel about it tomorrow but, mostly, I feel relieved that it's over. It was a long time coming and I feel like a billion pounds have been lifted off my chest. Mentally and emotionally, this has been the craziest weekend (plus a Monday and now, early Tuesday morning) I've had in a long time but I'm glad it's over now. I should've done this a long time ago. I guess I just didn't have the courage and I needed a swift kick in the nuts to get my ass into gear. I also needed a glass or three of Highland Park 12 Year Old Scotch, a.k.a., liquid courage to get me through it but I feel free now... free to finally move on with my life. Sorry for the vagueness but there are identities to protect and that's all the detail I'm willing to reveal in a public forum. You've probably got my email or phone number if you want to know more.

Here's to better days ahead. Consequences be damned, I finally fucking did it and I feel great. Cheers.

Edit: I'm over it.

I've been paying $13-$14 for 3.5lb of Tidy Cats crystals at Petco. I found them today for $8 at Publix (and there was a manufacturer's $1 off coupon the box too). FTS!

This is ridiculous, it's 1:40AM and I can't sleep. It's not that I'm not tired but there's about fifty thousand thoughts in my head right now. I've just been so stressed out about hating my job and stuff at the condo and some other things. I need to resolve all this crap so that I can be at peace. This sucks.

I sat through a combined 2 hours of traffic today. That's twice my normal commute. In the morning, some crazy person decided the 85N overpass would be a good idea to threaten to jump from. I don't mean to be insensitive or anything but I was already unhappy about having to go to work already and shutting down the ENTIRE FUCKING HIGHWAY really didn't help things at all. Seriously, break out the tranquilizer darts and be done with it.

In the evening, the exit on 85S was backed up for three miles. That was ass. Drivers here really do need to learn to not be so damn nice. Car after car after car would pull up on the left to cut into the front of the queue of cars and these idiot drivers would let them in. I mean, would they let someone cut in front of them in a theater? At McDonald's? Home Depot? FUCK NO! Wait in line like everyone else. So why the hell do they let cars in? Unfreakingbelievable. Do me a favor. Grow some nads, hug the bumper of the car in front of you and give the dude the finger the next time someone tries to cut in front of you.

Normally I'm a Colgate kind of guy but I picked up some Crest today because it was 2 for 1 at CVS. The toothpaste itself was great... it left a nice minty taste but wtf is with the twist off cap? They couldn't splurge an extra half cent for a freaking flip cap? I can already envision stumbling into the shower half drunk and fumbling the damn cap all over the place.

So I thought I would be smart and replace the twister with the flip from the old tube of Colgate but the Colgate cap wouldn't stay on because it was just a little too big for the Crest. WTF?! I just know those asses at Crest and Colgate did that on purpose.

Oh yeah, Duke sucks, and the gameday traffic totally screwed me tonight.

Why the hell can't we make bendy straws that don't crack at the bendy part? I swear 1 out of every 5 straws I get from the work cafeteria is defective. Pain in the ass...

And how hard is it to make a decent vending machine? I dropped 75 cents on a damn jelly type fruit snack and it gets caught on a sliver of the wrapper. So I drop another 75 and the second pack gets caught on an even smaller piece of the wrapper! What a rip.

I mean, we can blow up comets and send shit to the other planets, how do we still not have good bendy straws and vending machines?! Dammit.