Day 36

The start of week 6. Only 46 more to go after this (unless I write this for more than a year, we'll see).

Yes, anyone that want a Llywelyns cup can just ave one. You don't have to give me anything. Just let me know.

Anything else uniquely St. Louis?

It is hot today. I know this because I have spent a decent portion of the day on the exterior of the world. I'll start in the middle somewhere, because that suits my purpose better.

So, my parents have a huge yard. On a hill. I mean, it's almost an acre. And all on a hill. And all of the grass was pretty tall. Dangit. At least my parents have a 42" walk-behind (where you get to ride one of those little platforms on wheels things), so that certainly helped the cause, but those things are way harder to control than you might think. I know, you're saying, "I've seen hundreds of I am sure legal immigrants riding those things all over, it looks easy." Well, it's not incredibly tough, but it is tiring and can be a little tricky. So, I mowed the lawn. I almost made the lawnmower the awesomosity, but really, a lawnmower, just not that awesome.

After that I helped my dad replace some incredibly hard to reach spark plugs in his van. Soooo fun. Let me tell you. Well, after we got all those in, we tried to start the van. The alarm (of which he hasn't used in years and doesn't even have the remote for anymore) start shrieking. That is annoying (I eventually stuffed some rags in it because it kept going off). Now neither of us are experts when it comes to anything vehicular (see post where my brother helped fix my truck), so we can't figure out how to disarm this thing. Worse than that is that it has a starter kill feature. So the truck won't start. And we can't disable the alarm. Aarrrghhh!

After crawling in some very awkward positions to look at all the wiring under the steering column (and after we disconnected some stuff like the backup battery for the alarm), I found some fuses connected to wires going to a black box that looked like an alarm brain. I pulled one of those fuses just for fun and...presto, van starts. Woohoo!

Then I showered and here I sit. A/C feels so good about now.

Now, I skipped over this morning, because it includes today's awesomosity. You see, I have a good friend Ben Shepard (he and his wife Erin were previously mentioned on the blog for coming to watch my short film premiere, which you can see again at the Tivoli in November). Ben and I try to get together somewhat regularly to just talk about life, have some accountability, and just build our friendship. Ben works at SLU (dorm director or something, he lives on campus), and I live in South City, so the Central West End is a decent place to meet. We met at the Coffee Cartel this morning, and that is what is awesome today. For one reason, check out their TV commercial here. You can also look at their webcam (courtest of Fox 2) on their website here.

I think my personal favorite thing about the Cartel is that they have normal sizes. They even have the cups on the ledge by the register with the sizes written on them; small, medium, large; 12oz, 16 oz, 20oz; little, middle, biggest; etc. But then to beat it all, they have all the not sizes that other national coffee chains use such as grande, venti, etc. crossed out. (I'm the guy that always orders a medium or large at Starbucks, then when they say whatever Italian word that correlates to what I say, I reply, "sure".)

They have a huge patio, they have live music on weekends. People tell me they have decent food. They have FREE wi-fi (unlike some national chains). They are open 24 hours. They are not full of themselves. It's just a cool place, and I recommend it to anyone that has not been there before.

After that, I got home and noticed my parents outdoor cat, who had been getting pretty fat, was not so fat anymore. After a little searching and some help from my mother to get them situated nicely, here is what I found:

Awwww

Yes, she had 5 kittens last night. No, we are not keeping them. Does anyone want a kitten in about 6 weeks to go with the Llywelyns cup?

Here is a picture of me all sweaty and dirty in front of my parents huge lawnmower:


See you all tomorrow! Have a fantabulous Monday!

Day 25

25 Days! Thats a quarter of 100 days, which is just over a quarter of a year, so, if my math is right, I'm like a 16th or so through the year!

Vote in my poll and comment on my posts. Please.

All right. Yesterday I had a pretty good idea of what todays aweomosity would be, and I was totally right. You see, as some of you know, I had a movie I helped make premiere at the St. Louis Filmmaker's Showcase last night at the Tivoli. And it was awesome. My film specifically, but the whole contest was awesome too. I was able to get a few of my friends to come see it, Ben and Erin Shepard. And they can back me up on what I'm going to do next. See, there were 16 shorts in this viewing, all comedies (well, all labeled as comedies), so I'm gonna give a one sentence review of all 16 (in alphabetical order so as to not show preference). So, here goes:

101 Damnations - Good quality film, good acting, somewhat funny, deserved to make the showcase.

Coffee - Good film that portrays a conversation between a father and son that work together; funny and well-made.

Dog Park - Animated short about dogs that was cute. Not funny, but entertaining.

The Doubtful Martyr - Easily got the most laughs of the night, very funny and well-made; special kudos to the Director of Photography (Ok, so this was my film, but most of what I just wrote was true).

Flapjacked - Odd film, I think about the downfall of art and commercialism in America, odd.

Four Squares - Mockumentary that could have been the best film of the night were it not for the noticeably bad quality

Gus Over Easy - wierd movie about a guy with sunny-side up eggs for ears. Seriously.

Lunchbreak - One of my favorites, though it did have quite a bit of foul language, but a guy died a rather gruesome death.

The Nightly Potato, Episode 5 - This is apparently an ongoing short film. This was computer animated debate between Clinton and Obama, also starring Tom Brokaw and the late Tim Russert, the only film that may have gotten more laughs than TDM.

Scalpel - No. This should have never been made, much less put in this contest.

Sugar - Easily the most professionally produced and expensive film of the night (they had Nat King Cole music in it, plus a lot of choreography, and I think they shot on actual film) very good, probably the "winner". I think Matt Wertz (the Christian singer) was involved.

This Really Happened - True story of an interview where the interviewer whooped out her boobs and started breastfeeding during the interview. Uncomfortable.

Three Days, Spencer - Wierd story of a troubled middle-schooler failing a grade for not speaking, then rips everyone a new one. Not great.

Tuesday - Winner of oddest of the night, this guy is just going through the motions until one Tuesday, he is suddenly surrounded, followed and befriended by lots and lots of pink flamingo yard things. Really wierd and not that good.

Two Fine Gentlemen Find a Dollar - Why are all these so wierd? It had its funny moments, I suppose.

The Ugly Turkey - Animated story of the plight of an ugly turkey, started the night off with some good laughs.

So, now that I have bored you with reviews of movies you will never see (except for the Doubtful Martyr, I have DVDs and will be happy to show anyone this awesomeness), I guess I'll just show you my picture of the day. Actually, today you get two, one was from yesterday, on the roof of an inspection, then todays in my folks basement.

Thanks for reading, I appreciate it, talk to you all soon!!