Busy day. Watched:
Today was Sunday. Sunday’s a work day for me. I don’t get home till after 1pm. Then it’s lunch, putting the kids down for a nap… and even I get a nap. Not wanting to disturb my normal routine, I watched movies when I could.
Today I watched:
I’m starting to get just a little sloppy here and there. If I grab a piece of candy from my kid’s Easter basket I don’t count it. I’m not measuring out my mayonnaise when I make a sandwich. Do letting little things slide like that matter? They do if I start letting bigger things slide.
Example of letting little things slide.
With Weight Watchers you can literally eat whatever you want… so that’s not the issue… but you’re supposed to track everything. When I have a “hungry night” and I eat a little more than just dinner… I’ll count that, no problem. It’s the little stuff that I’m not counting… and I need to start… because those things have a way of adding up. And I’d hate to be sacrificing so much during the week only to have a tiny Reese’s Cup mess me up.
Mess you up? I'll swallow your soul!
Still though I’m doing great. This week I’m down 1.8 pounds… 3.8 pounds total.
I’ve decided to tall this stunt “Movies Like Malkoff” since I’m just sortakinda doing what he’s doing.
Today I was able to watch:
Bonnie and Clyde was a letdown. I’m sure in it’s day it was hot stuff but the movie just doesn’t hold up today. The storytelling is seemingly random and disjointed. I couldn’t tell if they were trying to be historically accurate or not. It wasn’t a drama or action or a love story. I really wanted it to be one of those… but I couldn’t pin it down. Every character other than Warren Beatty annoyed me to death. I remember seeing a different version back in High School that had a long, drawn-out and more emotionally stirring finale where Bonnie and Clyde were gunned down in their car. This one just riddled them with bullets and done.
Shutter Island is a lot darker than I remember. I had seen it before on Netflix but I wasn’t half paying attention. It’s got a great twist that makes all of the weirdness make sense. So darker… but so much better than I recall. Like a good novel that pays off in the last few pages. Not a movie I would suggest to just anyone… or any one at all for that matter. Again, pretty dark subject matter. Children are dead in it.
Paper Moon is in black and white… but filmed in 1973. I wonder how many films were done in black and white around the year I was born? It’s pretty hilarious. A little girl’s mom dies and a man who may be her father is tasked with bringing her to family in Missouri. The man is a swindler, the girl is street-wise so the comedy is natural and constant. Couldn’t help but think of “Better Off Dead” with the paperboy asking for his 2 dollars during the scene in the diner. “I want my 200 dollars!!!” Awesome. I found myself laughing out loud several times… and that doesn’t happen except when I’m watching Community. The little girl is amazing. They don’t make child actors like that anymore… and she actually turned into a very attractive woman. Even if you hate this movie… at least watch till you hear “Hurry up Doctor. This little baby’s gotta go winkie-tinkie”. I loved seeing Higgins (John Hillerman) from Magnum P.I. and a young Randy Quaid.
As with all of these old movies… I have a hard time finding any sort of plot. Wonder why that is.
So on day two I’m 5 movies in. Mark Malkoff had already watched 17 movies by the end of two days. I’m 12 films behind right now. Hilarious.
Mark Malkoff is a comedian and film maker out of New York. He’s done some super-creative work since I had the fortune to discover him. He’s gotten 6-pack abs in 30 days. He’s lived five days in his bathroom, with no internet. He’s had New Yorkers carry him across town. He’s lived at Ikea. He stopped by my hometown of St. Mary’s, Georgia to accept the key to the city. And one of my favorite gags: Celebrity Sleepovers where he literally slept over at as many celebrity homes as he could. Funny (and creative) stuff.
Right now he’s in the midst of filming a whole new project where he’s trying to watch over 400 hours of Netflix. That’s 250 full-length movies, credits included, on Netflix Instant in a month’s time. As of this post’s writing he has just completed day 5. Five 15+ hour days just watching movies. Sounds like a dream… but I’m sure it got old say around day 1, 3rd movie.
It got me thinking. Mark does this for a living. It’s his job to create, film and release wild and creative comedy stunts… so he can take 400 hours out of a month and spend it on a marathon movie stunt. But how about me? How long would it take a father of two, with a full-time (plus) job, and several podcasts, who could only use his free time to do the same thing? I’m going to find out.
I’ll be watching (mostly) the same films as Mark is, starting with day one. I actually started this morning. Mark is committing 15 to 16 hours every day to his project. I can only use the time I have to myself… which is most Fridays and evenings after 9:00pm. There are a few films that Mark has on his list that I’ve already seen so I will be replacing them with movies of similar length. On May 3rd I’ll be at the Marvel Marathon leading up to the Avengers movie. I’ll be counting them as replacement films as well. It’s going to be fun to see how long this takes me.
Today I watched:
So far the movies are wonderful… and disturbing. I had never seen The Graduate or Chinatown. I was amazing at how current they looked. Visually they could have been filmed this year. Where they showed their age was in the cinematography and storytelling. Apparently The Graduate is referred to as a comedy-drama… a genre I was not aware existed until today. I showed my age by recognizing the church scene at the end from what I think is a Wayne’s World sequel rather than the other way around as Wayne’s World had parodied The Graduate.
Both the Graduate and Chinatown dealt with some pretty heavy subject matter. Stuff filmmakers don’t mess with much these days. We like our movies light hearted and with a happy ending. But I’ll tell you, Chinatown got me angry. As was intended I’m sure. So much left undone. So much happened wrong… but it was so real in that way.
Bonnie and Clyde has me wondering how historically accurate it is. The way the two met and just jumped into a life of crime together seems like a movie making shortcut… unless it really happened that way. Though I’m almost halfway through, this seems like someone went back in time and made Natural Born Killers. Which I’m sure is actually a remake of Bonnie and Clyde… or at least heavily influenced by it.
After Bonnie and Clyde tomorrow I’ll be replacing A Clockwork Orange (seen it long ago and it just wasn’t my thing at all… can’t stand milk) with Shutter Island which is actually 3 minutes longer… but who cares.
When I was a younger man it was a popular thing to hang cute cross-stitched signs over your toilet. Usually they were very frilly with flowers, kittens and a message that made it feel good to be a woman.
Not being a woman I thought it was a bit odd that none of these stitched signs ever addressed men. Men are the ones standing in the correct position while in the bathroom to be able to read the signs after all.
So I wrote my own cute poem. I bought some fabric, thread and a needle and cross-stitched my own “cute” sign for men and had it hanging over my toilet until I got married and my wife replaced it with a lighthouse painting with a scripture.
Here is that poem.
If you’re a guy and this you’re readin’
Then most likely you’re a peein’But if you’re readin’ what you’re seein’
Are you seein’ where you’re peein’?
See it’s funny because anything over a toilet is a bad idea. We men need to be able to focus on what we’re doing. So my little poem addressed that issue and every other little thing I found hilarious about the cross-stitch trend.
What? You think this is just a silly story? Need some proof? Well you’re in luck! It just so happens that I still have my cross-stitch creation. Enjoy.
Note the yellow stitching on the pink carpet. What could that be?
Click it to make it big enough to read.
Have you ever worked really hard sticking to a diet plan only to lose .2 pounds after all that? Yeah, well I have. That’s my big update for this week. Point two pounds.
"Know what weighs .2 pounds? My bark."
I guess I could celebrate. At least it wasn’t .2 pounds in the wrong direction. And if I didn’t have a electronic scale that did the tenths I wouldn’t even know I’d lost at all.
It’s a little ridiculous to fret over such a thing when a drink of water or a good trip to the rest room could make you weigh a half a pound more or less instantly… but that’s why I’m sticking with it. I remember last time that I could go two weeks without any change… then that third week drop four pounds all at once. That’s just the way it works. At least I’m not 12 seconds heaver.
"What tha... I've been weighing myself on a wall clock!"
So all that to say I’m looking forward to next Sunday’s weigh in. Sticking to the Points Plus system tighter than ever… cause it’s easy to get lazy and quit measuring and start counting things in your head, trusting yourself. Thing is, my self wants more than the measuring cup wants to give out… so I can’t trust it.
Couldn’t find my measuring tape so I couldn’t do accurate measurements… have since found it and I’m about an inch smaller around all the biggest places: belly, waist and neck. Funny, I want my neck to get smaller more than I want my belly to go down. I’d wear more of my dress clothes and a tie if I didn’t feel like they were choking me to death.
"I know that feel bro."
Weird thing. I put on my ball cap the other day. It felt loose. I haven’t had a haircut. Haven’t moved the adjustment strap on the hat. Did my fat head lose weight? Weird.
"I also know that feel bro."
Thanks for reading. Here’s your reward:
I LOVE stuff like this. Freakin’ wept through the whole video. This child with a huge passion, huge imagination, amazing problem solving skills, and the sheer creativity to pull it all off. Blows my mind. If this doesn’t at least inspire you… you’ve got to see a brain doctor or something.
Check out the website Caine’s Arcade. I wish they were selling the t-shirt… I would already have bought one. My buddy Ethan Nichole lives in LA… I wonder if I could get him and his new girlfriend to go by and hook him up with some Axe Cop books courtisy of Nobody’s Listening Podcast. If I’m in the LA area again any time soon… I WILL be making a weekend trip to Caine’s.
Have you seen the episode of Doctor Who where the little Adipose aliens were coming out of people’s excess fat? It was a wonderful weight loss system… until everyone turned completely into a mess of the little jobbers.
"Could you lose some more weight? I need a friend."
I kinda wish that would happen right about now. My stomach would flex and wiggle. This cute little nasty guy would pop out from under my shirt, wave goodbye and float away. He would even wave and smile with his one little sharp scary tooth. The best part being I bet each Adipose weighs in at around 5 pounds.
Alas, it is not that easy… or dangerous.
Getting carried away with weight loss is dangerous.
So all that to say my first week is behind me. I lost 2 pounds. So about half a Adipose. Now I’m glad they don’t exist. Who would want to deal with half an alien crawling around your house. Clean up alone…
Experience tells me that I should be losing about 2 pounds every week if I follow the plan. That means I should be within goal range in about 42 weeks or 6 months. That’s a little depressing… but I worked a lot longer and a lot harder getting fat! I had to overeat every single day! It took years of work to get me where I am now.
People have no respect for how hard it is to avoid doing a sit-up. You do half a one just getting up in the morning!
So here’s to waiting on September! I’ll be nice and skinny just in time for the Holidays!! Welcome back my little Adipose!
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