Alarm Clock, Movie Reviews, Book Reviews

One of my simple goals in life is to wake up before the alarm goes off. Since I am an early riser by nature I normally do not set the alarm for everyday wake up. My main goal for that wake up is to shoot for around 5:30-6:00 a.m. and beat the shiftless, good for nothing time of 7:00 a.m. The reason for that is when I was a kid my dad would tell me that anyone that slept till 7:00 a.m. or later would never be worth anything and would turn out to be a “shiftless, good for nothing” human being. He was so adamant about it that it stuck in my sub-conscious never to leave or be erased. So, I always wake up prior to that forbidding time and go about my day. The other day I had a 5:50 a.m. flight out of Lubbock so I needed to wake up 4:15 a.m. I set the alarm the night before for 4:15 a.m. but was determined to beat it to the punch since alarms are basically very obnoxious things in the early morning. At 4:00 a.m. I was awake staring at the alarm making sure that I did not have to listen to it growl. At 4:10 a.m. I reached over and turned it off and then got up, with victory over the clock. Sometimes this is not a good practice since it is possible to go back to sleep, but the alarm guru’s figured this out by putting a “snooze” feature on it so you can hit it and then grab a couple of minutes more. When I am staying in a hotel and need to get up without fail for a meeting or something I just call the front desk and ask for a wake up call. Of course now with all the new modern hi tech stuff some have phones that require a computer programer to set the alarm. I stayed in one last night that was cordless but really didn’t work, so I called the front desk with my cell phone to tell them that my room phone didn’t work. Now, you hi tech freaks are saying, “why not use the alarm feature on your brilliant I Phone?” Well that is a real strange question since I don’t know how to set it and further more do not want to learn how to set it. The hotel was very accommodating since they promised they would send someone to my room to knock on my door. Well it turns out I slept every 15 minutes so I really didn’t need the wake up after all since I was already awake. I did set the alarm that was furnished in the room but when it went off I could barely hear it, so if I had been asleep I would not have heard it. Now, to wrap up this drama I did wake up in time and the hotel did send the messenger to knock on my door, BUT!!!!, he was 15 minutes later than my wake up call. At any rate I made my flight, took a nap on the plane and answered my wake up when the pilot says, “buckle up we are now landing”!!! WOW, this hi-tech world!!!

Movie Review: “Secretariat”, ****, No doubt a four star true story movie about one of America’s greatest athletes: A horse named Big Red, as he was called by his owners, but Secretariat as he was known in the horse racing world, who took his enlarged heart and desire to win and not only won the triple crown, but completely dominated it. The real story is how he got there and the people who helped him make it happen. There was the jockey, Ron Turcotte, the trainer Lucien Lauren(played by John Malkovich) and of course the owner Penny Chenery, played by Diane Lane. She fights just about every challenge you can imagine to make the dream of winning the triple crown happen. From financial challenges to the male chauvenists who really did not want “just” a housewife to be the owner of a winning horse. So, the real story is the getting there that makes this such a great movie. Please stay for the credits at the end since it tells you where the real people are now. Rated PG for brief mild language.

“Due Date”, *, While this really is not even a one star movie and without a doubt one of the worst movies I have seen this year I gave it one star since it did have two good actors in it. While it is apparent Todd Phillips, the director of this mess, thought he could imitate “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” , he didn’t even come close. That was a funny movie and Due Date doesn’t even come close. The story revolves around Peter Highman played by Robert Downey Jr.(a very good actor) as an expectant first-time father whose wife’s due date is only five days away. As he hurries to catch a flight home from Atlanta to be at her side for the birth, his best intentions go awry when a chance encounter with aspiring actor Ethan Tremblay(Zach Galifianakis--funny man from Hang Over) forces Peter to hitch a ride with Ethan on what turns out to be a cross-country road trip(Planes, Trains and Automobiles style, but not funny) that destroy’s several cars, numerous friendships, has a human/dog masturbation scene that was not funny and should have been left out, and just does not make any sense. The co-star’s Michelle Monaghan, Jamie Foxx and Juliette Lews were also wasted in this useless piece of cinema. Now if you go see this it is your own fault. Rated R for language, drug use and sexual content(you mean when Galifianakis and his pet dog masturbate in harmony?)

Book Review: “Tears of A Clown--Glenn Beck and The Tea Bagging of America”, Author Dana Milbank. *, This is really a weird book in that it makes no sense and if you can figure out what the point is please let me know. Supposingly Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank prsents a fair and balance look at multimillionaire real American Glenn Beck. Beck is the very popular Fox News host who boasts 3 million daily viewers. It intrigued me, before I read it, since I knew nothing of Beck and thought it might enlighten me. Again, useless and missed the point in my opinion. Save your money, I sure didn’t.

Current Reading: “Decision Point-George W. Bush”, half way through and this is an excellent book. Will have final review within a few days.

How about this Ms. SH??

greerman