Shank of the evening

We're in that little break between to-day and to-night; Otis is upstairs making Mexican corn soup for dinner so I thought I'd catch up.

Yesterday was a pretty good day: after work &c. for both of us, we had time to head out to Golden Gardens to enjoy some of that on-again, off-again sunshine we've been having. It was nice to soak up some rays, especially since we had a double-feature movie night at home afterwards.

The first featured presentation was Intermission, billed as the interweaving of the comic tales of eleven Dubliners; since it was Irish, the tales included physical violence, adultery, sexual dysfunction, betrayal, rebellion, existential despair, Guinness, and evil incarnate riding a BMX bike. It was great. Colin Ferrel was intensely unlikable, Colm Meany turned in a great performance as a terrible cop, and Cillian Murphy used his soulful blue eyes to good effect. Some other people were in it, too. Seriously, it was funny and sad and real.

After our own intermission, the second feature was Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, the George Clooney-directed dramatization of the Chuck Barris "autobiography" that claims the game-show producer was also a CIA hit man. Yawn. Clooney's direction had some nice moments and the cast turned in decent performances (particularly a gracefully-aging Rutger Hauer), but the whole thing is so ridiculous that it didn't bear making, much less watching. Otis liked it a little more than I did.

This morning, we went up to the big Phinney Ridge neighborhood garage sale; it was a bit of a disappointment. I think that a lot of folks were fearful of the rain, and did not bring out all of their stuff, at least not by the time we were there. Otis got some ethnic bags and I got us ice cube trays but that was as exciting as it got. We just walked down to Half-Price books, and after-dinner hold work for both of us (mine's job applications).

And speaking of job: do you think I'd have a shot at this one?

More work is on tap for tomorrow: I think I will be camped at a Tully's responding papers most of the day.