Life of Brian

I watched Superbad on Netflix Instant Watch and enjoyed it. Sometime, if you are just in the mood for some teenage raunch/stupid/low brow comedy, this movie will be for you.

We popped in the first disc of Season 1 of The West Wing tonight and watched a couple episodes. in the very first one Deputy Communications Director Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe) picks up a woman in bar and ends up spending the night with her. In the morning they accidentally swap pagers. Later that day “Sam’s” pager goes off and discovers the swap along with that he also finds out the woman works for an escort service! She looks vaguely familiar, I think I have an idea, but dismiss it as too far fetched.

Donna has the same idea, but is sure who it is, so she says it, “She’s from House.” Now when she speaks I can tell it is her, it is Lisa Edelstein, just 10 years younger than we’re used to.

The fine folks at TaxCut mailed me a CD again this year. I almost installed it.

I have used a computer program to do my taxes (TaxCut and TurboTax before it) for at least a dozen years. In the beginning they were sort of crude and it was more a novelty and a math check than anything. As each year went by they got better, they asked questions in plain English, you no longer had to read the form, read the explanation in the instructions, scratch your head, guess. It was almost fun to do your taxes.

I don’t remember what TaxCut cost last year, but this year they wanted $50 for the one that includes Federal & State and that apparently was my tipping point because I didn’t want to spend that much. I downloaded the 1040 form and instructions off the IRS site and then because we were out and about yesterday I ducked in the library and picked up a paper copies too (it is so much easier for me to read the instructions while filling out the form instead of flipping windows back and forth.)

Today I investigated the possibility of filling them out online for free, but they were limited to people making less than $53k which left us out. Then I found that both of the major players offered free online software and e-file for federal (will charge for doing the state though ~$30.) I picked TurboTax Free and in less than an hour I was done.

Admittedly ours is a piece of cake, we can’t even itemize anymore because our home mortgage interest is so low now, but I’m sure it will take longer to do the state on paper tomorrow.

Finally got around to seeing last year’s independent movie that could, Juno. Ranks right up there with yesterday’s Henry Poole Is Here flick, quirky character navigates tricky life problem while surrounded by a circle of quirky friends/family to satisfyingly happy ending to a folksy acoustic soundtrack. Ellen Page is nicely cast as the protagonist, but no 16-year old is that smart or worldly.

Unless of course she a 17-year old Vanessa Wetherhold, daughter of an English Professor in the movie Smart People. I’ve had this movie in my rental queue for awhile now, but the other day it got moved into the Watch It Now category and while Donna watched something on the tube I watched it on the laptop. Some folks compare it to Sideways in tone, mostly I think because of Thomas Hayden Church, I didn’t see it in anything other than his similar sort of loose cannon with a purpose shtick. I enjoyed the movie and don’t regret the hour and a half I spent with it, but it is another one that I can’t recommend to anyone I know because I don’t know anyone else who likes this type of movie.

I do enjoy “independent style” movies, but after this weekend I think I need a dose of good ol’ Hollywood style unreality. Maybe I need to move The Dark Knight to the top of the queue.

Today was a rainy day, just right for recovering from the flu and watching movies. First we watched Burn After Reading (or was it Burn Before Reading?) and somehow A-List writer/directors with an A-List cast somehow managed to produce a B-List movie. It was not bad, it was good, but it was not inspired like Fargo or The Big Lebowski.

The second movie was Henry Poole Is Here and I’m not really sure of what to make of this movie. I absolutely can’t think of anyone I could possibly recommend this movie to, but not because it was an awful movie, it was actually pretty good. It starts quirky, runs to questions of religion and faith, then somehow turns into a happy ending romance.

The Miss America pageant (or is it the Miss USA pageant?) is on TLC (The Learning Channel?) this evening and somehow 20-odd nicely proportioned, finely tanned women in black bikinis wearing high heels came off as unattractive.