Asspipe Statement of the Day

"...Ruth Bader Ginsburg … has cancer.”
“Bad cancer. The kind that you don’t get better from,” he told a crowd of about 100 at the old State Theater. Senator Jim Bunning, Kentucky

Asspipe of the Day

It should go without saying that if your face is on the front of a Wheaties box, never, never, ever put a bong to your lips in a crowded room.

Asspipe Statement of the Day, or Mommas Don't Let Your Babies Grow up to Be Baseball Players

Rodriguez answered "No" when asked whether he's ever used steroids, human growth hormone or any other performance-enhancing substance."I've never felt overmatched on the baseball field," he said. "... I felt that if I did my, my work as I've done since I was, you know, a rookie back in Seattle, I didn't have a problem competing at any level." (Katie Couric interview, 2007)

Out of Sight

On Sunday morning while waiting for Travis McGee to get home, I was happy to find Out of Sight while flipping through the TV channels. If you've never seen this movie, put it on the list. First of all, it's based on a Elmore Leonard book so that gives it a headstart. It also stars George Clooney as a really terrible but charming bank robber. Ving Rhames co-stars as his sidekick, a criminal with a penchant for confessing to his sister before he commits his crimes.The real surprise here is Jennifer Lopez. She plays a federal marshall kidnapped by Clooney and Rhames during an escape attempt from prison. She and Clooney spend a few hours together in the trunk of a car which leaves him smitten and her intrigued. She is actually a revelation and I can't believe I'm saying this. Her subsequent movies have left me pretty cold and just seem to be a vehicle for her to parade around the screen playing herself. But she inhabits the character of Karen as well as she wears the molded-to-her-body leather jacket that should have its' own screen credit. She is also as pretty as Clooney in this film and that's saying something.

The locale switches back and forth from Miami, a Leonard favorite, to the gritty underground fight scene in Detroit. There are several incendiary characters including Dennis Farina as Karen's protective father, Michael Keaton as her idiot boyfriend, Steve Zahn as a hapless tagalong and Catherine Keener, Don Cheadle and Luis Guzman. The movie moves along at a fast-pace, keeps the plot together and has fantastic, hot chemistry between Clooney and Lopez. A winner and worth the second look

Asspipe Statement of the Day

“Make no mistake, tax cheaters cheat us all, and the IRS should enforce our laws to the letter. ” (Congressional Record, May 7, 1998, p. S4507, Senator Tom Daschle (D-SD))

Asspipe Statement of the Day

"It's all porked up. There's earmarks in it. There's condoms in it."
--Pat Buchanan on the stimulus package

Walking In Circles Before Lying Down

I generally love dogs better than most people. My own dogs have been anthropomorphized to within an inch of their lives. Even so, they still don't actually talk. If they did, though, I think they would converse on pretty much the same level as the dogs in Walking in Circles Before Lying Down. Chuck, a pit-mix from the pound is owned by a woman who has terrible taste in men and is surrounded by her female relatives that have the same issue and varying neuroses. Her sister actually dated Scott Peterson after the unfortunate murder thing. And lives in a Winnebago that was formerly a Baywatch makeup trailer. And she's a Life Coach. Great character building.
Chuck's owner has just been dumped by her useless, great-in-bed and crappy out of it boyfriend and Chuck is thrilled. He is a fairly good judge of character and is a pretty entertaining dog. In a conversation about how often dogs pee, he tells his owner, "Well, there's two kinds of peeing. There's regular peeing because you have to pee. And then there's auxiliary competitive peeing. For acquiring an empire. I'm all about the real estate."
Merrill Markoe gets lot of things right in this book, including how it feels to lose a beloved pet and then find that you can actually fall in love in a whole different way with a different pet. Her characters are funny and sympathetic and at times downright pathetic. She also gets the family dynamics between difficult people right on target. It's a quick read and well worth every minute spent devouring it.

Wanted. The worst. Movie. Evuh.

Let me start by saying that I rarely see a movie anymore that doesn't self-vend from the Redbox so at times the pickings are slim. Those deciders at Redbox headquarters wear themselves out trying to appeal to the broadest audience with the least offensive material. Even so, it's a good thing for everyone that has a dollar to spare to see Iron Man. Not so with this dud. I picked it because Burn After Reading is already gone and Appaloosa was out. It was Wanted or Kung Fu Panda. Obviously I chose wrong.
James McAvoy plays a loser slacker office worker who can't even get worked up enough to tell off his "best" friend who's screwing his girlfriend. His dead-eyed, slack-jawed look gets old really quick. While reupping his meds at the drugstore he is approached by Fox (Angelina Jolie) and is told a man wants to kill him. A fairly decent shootout ensues and then it just get preposterous. This movie is based on a graphic novel series and I would bet that the paper version works much better. We learn that there was a group of assassin weavers -- yes, assassin weavers-- that have an ancient loom that sends them messages telling them whom to assassinate. Let me just say it again---assassin weavers. Original at least.
Wesley (McAvoy) finds out that his father was one of the greatest assassins ever, was recently killed was one of the greatest assassins ever, was recently killed by a rogue assassin weaver (surprise) and he has this fabulous talent in his genes. He has an array of heightened powers that allow him and the others to bend the arc of a bullet, stand on speeding trains, jump great heights, etc. None of their talents follow any sort of world-building rules. They just kind of come and go as needed. Sort of like the plot. Morgan Freeman slums here as the leader of the Fraternity of Assassin Weavers. He might as well have stood on screen with a paycheck in his hand.

This is all the rest of what needs to be said about this movie:

• You won't care about anyone in it or what happens to them.


• The big surprise is so badly bungled it doesn't really matter.


• There's a lot of gratuitous violence that even I didn't care for and I am very tolerant of violence.


• Angelina Jolie has the coolest tattoos ever in this movie.


• Angelina Jolie needs to eat a Big Mac. And a sleeve of fudge stripes. And a milkshake.