If you’re not watching this season of Lost, I’m not sure that we can be friends anymore.

Last night’s episode absolutely blew my mind.

My buddy JK has a hot new blog on the interwebs. It’s kind of hard to explain what he does. Basically he eats food – usually stuff from fast food restaurants, odd concoctions from the candy aisle, or anything that sounds like it shouldn’t exist – and then writes about it. Usually he winds up writing about how nasty something is, but every once in a while he’s surprised.

Well, this week I was standing in line at Wal-Mart and noticed Chocolate Mix Skittles. They sounded just plain wrong, so of course I had to pick them up out of morbid curiosity. I figured this was something that would appear on JK’s blog, because, really, just the thought of chocolate Skittles would have to worry the average rational person. Rather than tell him about them, though, I asked if I could do a guest entry on his blog and he said sure.

So without further ado, here is my review of Chocolate Mix Skittles over at Things JK Eats. And while you’re there, look around the rest of the site for some fun experiments in the culinary landscape.

Thanks to Harper preferring to sleep on our chests, rather than in her own cradle, Andrea and I have both had quite a few quiet nights spent sitting in our recliner with the portable DVD player being the only light in the room. So I’ve watched ALOT of movies and TV shows in the last 6 weeks. So many, in fact, that I’ll probably miss some on this list, but I at least wanted to get them counted. As usual with these long lists, comments will be minimal unless it’s warranted.

The Abominable Snowman:
Fun. Cheesy. Odd to see Grand Moff Tarkin trampsing around in the Himalayas.
2.5 / 5 bananas

The Nines:
Cool little mind-screw of a film. Not sure I completely loved the big reveal ending, but if you let it take you along for the ride it’s fun. I’ve been saying since “Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place” that one day Ryan Reynolds is going to be a star. He shows he has the range here, which is another feather in his cap.
3 / 5 bananas

The Wire (Season 1):
Holy shit. What an amazing show. I’m going to get caught up on this one sooner rather than later via Netflix.
5 / 5 bananas

F*ck:
A very interesting look at a very dirty word. It loses some steam in the last 1/4 or so, but overall if you’re an English nerd like me you’ll dig it.
3 / 5 bananas

Dexter (Season 1):
Another excellent show that I missed (mainly because I don’t have Showtime). There are a lot of aspects of this show that I really like, but a few that bug me. Overall, though, I really enjoy it and will definitely catch up with Season 2 once it’s available on DVD. I don’t know how they’re cleaning this up for CBS, but apparently they are. It’s not the violence (as there’s actually very little, but the language).
4 / 5 bananas

Stardust:
Cool kid’s flick. Some really good performances. Some great concepts. Definitely worth checking out.
3 / 5 bananas

Sunshine:
A beautiful film from the director of “28 Days Later” and “Trainspotting”. Lost me in the end – as so many other people have said – but the first 3/4 is really amazing.
3.5 / 5 bananas

Meet the Robinsons:
Andrea and I were curious about this one ever since it came out in theatres, but never got around to see it. It’s the 3-D animated equivalent of a sketch comedy show – there’s a plot (sort of), but every scene sort of stands on it’s own. Bizarre characters, randomness at every turn, it’s just a fun, strange little film that we both really dug more than we probably should have.
3.5 / 5 bananas

28 Weeks Later:
Similar to Romero’s “The Crazies”, a group of average Joe’s try to get out of London before the government destroys it in an effort to re-contain the viral outbreak of “Rage”, a zombie-like biological weapon that we were first introduced to in “28 Days Later”. Apparently Romero pretty much did everything you can do with zombies. Who knew? Still, not a bad flick and definitely worth seeing if you liked the first one.
3 / 5 bananas

The Ten:
This one is getting a lot of bad reviews online, but I think it’s because people are expecting a film with, well, a plot. This is a movie created by the members of the sketch comedy troupe, The State, and it’s essentially one giant episode of their former MTV show. There are a few connecting pieces here and there, but for the most part it’s all individual stories (which are based loosely on the Ten Commandments) that don’t always make a whole lot of sense, but if you’re down with The State sense of humor, you get it. Not every story is great (particularly the lying rhino one is just plain annoying), but we’ve watched it twice now, if that’s any indication of how much we enjoyed it.
4 / 5 bananas

The King of Kong: Fistful of Quarters:
The very controversial documentary regarding two contenders for the Donkey Kong championship. Yes, people still play DK – in fact, it’s considered one of the toughest video games ever. The film has gotten a lot of flak for what some say are inconsistencies, manipulative editing and flat out lies, but if you don’t want to get embroiled in the arguments, it’s still a really fun ride with some interesting characters.
3 / 5 bananas

Skidoo:
How could you go wrong? You have Jackie Gleason, Carol Channing, Groucho Marx, Frankie Avalon, Mickey Rooney, Peter Lawford, Burgess Meredith, Frank Gorshin, Cesar Romero, even Slim Pickens is in your movie. Seems like a slam dunk, huh? Hell naw. The year is 1968 and you try to make a psychedelic drug film with one of the Honeymooners? It’s a disaster of a film with no real plot or point, which makes it enjoyable to watch in a trainwreck sort of way. That is if you can get past Channing running around in bra and panties for most of one scene. *shiver*
1.5 / 5 bananas

The Monster Squad:
I missed this one when I was younger, but I decided to catch up with it as it has become a sort of film geek cultural touchstone. And while the 33-year old in me finds there to be major flaws, the 11-year old in me freaking loved it.
3.5 / 5 bananas

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford:
Holy shit! Casey Affleck can act! A really good film that’s less about the legendary outlaw, and more Robert Ford, the man who shot James in the back. So much could be written about the themes this film deals with, but I’ll leave that for someone with more time on their hands.
4 / 5 bananas

Eastern Promises:
Viggo puts in a great performance here as a Russian mob wannabe. The main thing I liked about this film is that it only deals with one chapter in these people’s lives. Most films there’s a conclusion, an end point to where life changes for the characters completely and utterly. But with this one, there was no big, violent conflict at the end where everyone dies and characters reveal their true colors. This event happened, the people involved resolved it in their own way, and life goes on. I really liked that aspect of it. And, yes, ladies, Viggo does a fight scene while nude in a Russian bath house. However, it’s a pretty brutal scene with a lot of eye-gouging and arm-breaking, so it’s not going to be quite the thrill you’re hoping for to see his little Aragorn.
3.5 / 5 bananas

Across the Universe:
I like Julie Taymor. I think she has a unique style in that with every movie she attempts to show us something we’ve never seen before. I like the Beatles. I’m no expert on their entire catalog of songs, but I know the basics of their history and more than the average Joe about their music. Throw the two together with a thin plot to bind them and I’m happy. Even if it is a musical.
3.5 / 5 bananas

Gone Baby Gone:
Holy shit! Casey Affleck can act! Holy shit! Ben Affleck can direct! I wish I’d caught this one in the theatre. This is easily one of the best films I’ve seen in the last six months. Like a classic Western, the film has a moral center to it that makes you ask hard questions of yourself and the world we live in. It’s somewhat disjointed plot can be a little jarring at points, but once you step back and see the final picture, it all comes together and you know this is the only way you could tell the story. A really excellent film.
5 / 5 bananas

Check out these lovely photos from Vanity Fair that place current actors in some famous scenes from Hitchcock’s classics. LINK Click on the photos to see the original scenes they’re depicting.

I particularly like the ones for Dial M for Murder (which they’ve recreated the lighting for almost perfectly), Lifeboat (I love how it’s a behind-the-scenes look at the film), and North by Northwest (although really it’s just the “Rogen Factor”). Beautiful work and a nice homage to Hitch. I think he would have dug it.

It’s 9:03am.

I just got in from plowing snow from 8pm until 8am. I’m an alternate this year, but unfortunately I got “the call” yesterday when the primary guy had a family emergency.

Poor Andrea was up with a very fussy Harper until 4:00am and I was helpless to do anything. It was killing me to get her text messages or phone calls when she was almost crying.

I wish there were some way out of snow plow duty. It’s the only downside to my job. Seriously. I really like it otherwise, but snow plow duty has always been the monkey wrench that messes up the whole works. I don’t want to have to find a new job, especially not for something that is only an issue a few times during the year. But this was a really bad situation.

I’m sure I’m just really tired, fed up, and cranky right now. Monday I’ll go back in to work and forget all about this. But I gotta say at this moment, updating my resume might not be a bad idea.

Stupid snow.