Thursday, March 11, 2010

Let's Do The Microwave!

The original plan for today had been to get some orange juice to Lainey, who had been stricken with the cold bug that had been jumping from person to person like a manic frog. This plan completely changed when I got a call from Lakewood to help out on a shoot. Apparently one of the people on the crew was feeling sick (I'm telling you, like a manic frog!), and they needed me to come in and relieve them so they could go home and be sick in proper fashion.

The sick crew member in question turned out to be Joe, one of my favorite people to work with. It truly sucked that he got sick, but at least I could help him out enough that he could spend some time recovering. I might come off nonchalant with so many people getting sick around me, but I've come to the realization that I just don't get sick in the Winter, Spring, or Summer. I rarely, ever get sick then. (And I'm knocking on wood, so I've covered my bases). Its Fall that I have to watch out for. Like clockwork, I always get deeply sick in the span of time between September and December-ish.

But one or two weeks of being sick out of an entire year? Yeah, I won't complain.

The shoot that I ended up helping on was something called "Planet Lakewood." Its a little informative program put together to teach residents how to be "Green" in their everyday lives. In this segment, the subject was how to clean your kitchen and bathroom without using chemicals. So it was tips on using baking soda, vinegar, and lemon juice instead of non-biodegradable chemical cleaners. The shoot was at one of the Producer's homes, and her husband was kind enough to put up with having a video shoot at his place. But two other residents weren't having as much fun with the shoot.

Their names were Frito and Cheeto, the two house cats.

These poor cats were locked in a different room so they wouldn't get mixed up into the shoot. This makes sense since we have lights and stands which were covered in enticing cables and wires. I don't know many cats that wouldn't be tempted to climb a few of the lights. So we kept them in a separate room. But that didn't keep them from voicing their annoyance/curiosity. They meowed a lot. And they scratched at the door. Even to the point that I thought that they might actually dig their way through the door. I'm pretty sure that one of the cats even bum-rushed the door a few times.

But besides that, the shoot went well, if a little behind schedule. We'd set up a shot, rehearse, and then shoot it. The actor would take different takes on a line, just for variety's sake. And one of the stranger lines was "Let's do the microwave!" Taken out of context, it was a very odd line. But what was happening was that she had just cleaned the sink, and was now moving on the next kitchen appliance to be cleaned. So she said "Let's do the microwave!"...nearly 15 different times:

Determined: "Let's do the microwave!"
Focused: "Let's do the microwave!"
Silly: "Let's do the microwave!"
Disney: "Let's do the microwave!"
Serious: "Let's do the microwave!"
Secretive: "Let's do the microwave!"
Manic: "Let's do the microwave!"
Happy: "Let's do the microwave!"
Thoughtful: "Let's do the microwave!"
Sexy: "Let's do the microwave!"
Defeated: "Let's do the microwave!"
Confused: "Let's do the microwave(?)!"

And so on. It was a lot of microwave doing.

By the time we were done for the day, the clock was telling me that dinner with Lainey was probably going to be the end result. I headed over to her place and, even though she was sick, we headed out to Wal-Mart to get a yoga mat. Huh? Yeah, it was for a friend of hers. Whatevs. We then headed to a nearby sushi place to pick up dinner.

Topics of Conversation @ Wal-Mart & the sushi place: Eating dog food, ways to spend money for fun things, living dangerously, getting hit just because, sores, people that don't understand boundaries, Chris Elliot's career, the sheer volume of naked people seen, why only a few people are allowed to wear flip-flops, tangent building, asexual people, abusive cats, etc.

I played with Hemlock for a bit before I headed out. Even though I knew that Lainey would probably be up for hours more, I figured she would be more rested dealing with JUST the cat. I was filling my gas tank at 76, when it struck me that I wanted to see a movie. I never know when these hankerings will hit, but I go with it when it happens. I drove to the Block, and decided I would pick whatever movie would be showing in the next 15 minutes. And that movie turned out to be:

Hey, would you look at that? I've been slightly interested in this flick because of its roots in mythology, which I've always been into since I was in Elementary. There like super-hero stories, except that a lot of the heroes are incestuous jerks, and prone to being insanely petty.

Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief wasn't a bad movie. It had some decent acting (except Uma Thurman could have definitely throttled back a bit), and the action was well done. The story had some holes you could toss a hydra through, but what do you expect from a kids' series of books converted into a movie? It ain't Harry Potter, no matter how bad it wanted to be. (It even got Chris Columbus, the director of the first two Potter movies). This is a popcorn flick, and if you have a kid with you, it would be even that much more fun. Percy Jackson even does a decent job of introducing Greek Mythology, even touching upon serious subjects that would have been avoided in other versions. And the actors they had come on to do cameos were really good. The guy they get to play Hades is also one of my favorite actors, so that was cool.

Also, Rosario Dawson is ridiculously hot.

So... check out this movie if you want. It won't blow you away, and it ain't no God of War, but its enjoyable.

-Nate

1 comment:

Adriee said...

I experimentally said "Let's do the microwave!" in my head, in ALL 15 of the above mention ways. Oh and my kitties would definitely want in on that shoot. They are too curious.