This post will have very little to do with movies. I am sorry that I am going to subject you to inane musings about my life. Things haven't been going great around here the past week or so. Last Monday my wife slid off the road and smashed her truck into a guard rail. Thankfully she is fine. Then we had the infamous ice storm of 2009, as the Arkansans are calling it. We were stuck in the house for a couple of days with no television and intermittent internet. The restlessness of being stuck inside, combined with our constant forced proximity, led us to have shorter tempers than we would normally have with one another. The biggest argument between my wife and I was on the subject of her driving ability, or lack thereof, in a PS3 game. I don't blame her for the "real-life" accident she had, but maybe subconsciously I released my frustration by snickering at her inability to use her e-brake to effectively do a 180 in Burnout Paradise. Regardless of the underlying reasons, there were heightened stress levels in the Bidwell household. It didn't help that I was still responsible for getting my work done for my actual job. When the internet was working I had to sit in my office and try to focus on php & JAVA code whilst my wife was enjoying our new playstation 3. In general the situation at work has been worsening for several weeks now. It seems there is a cloud of tension that has descended over my department. It definitely hasn't been as much fun to go to work lately. Last week it seemed like everything put stress on me. I was sure our trees were going to be ruined from all the ice. Every time I looked out the window I thought about the money we spent to have our tree planted, and the money it would cost to replace it. I knew that if I attempted to make it into the office I was going to wreck my car, rendering us completely car-less. At the end of it all our trees were fine, and I got a ride into work. We were lucky that we kept power throughout the whole ordeal. We only lost it for a couple of hours total, so we were very fortunate. If we had lost power things would have been much worse. Now the ice has all melted and we are trying to cope with only one vehicle. That, in itself has been a cause of stress. I am trying to be as gracious as possible, but I seem to keep saying/doing the wrong things. We just got the estimate for the truck today, and it won't be fixed until the end of next week. That seems like a long time, but I am sure it will feel much much longer than what it actually is. I think of myself as a pretty laid back person who doesn't let things get to him too much, so I will have to remember that for the next couple weeks. Hopefully things will improve at work also. I don't want this post to make me seem like a whiny little bitch. I realize how lucky I am to have the life I do, and wouldn't trade it for the world. I learned from 60 minutes that the key to happiness is having low expectations. I have been working on lowering my general expectations for my life. I think too many people get wrapped up in the "American Dream", then are disappointed when they don't achieve everything they thought they should have. I definitely fall into that same trap. Sometimes I think about my future and just expect to have a nice house and a great family. I am not saying you shouldn't be optimistic, but you should open your mind to the possibilities of what life would be like if everything were taken away. This is much easier to do in our current state of the economy. I complain about my job, but I am so glad that I have it. There are so many people who aren't so lucky. Anyway, this is starting to get kinda lame, so I should probably cut myself off.
Back to movie talk... Another disappointing thing about this past week is that we were stuck inside with little else to do other than watch movies, and I only watched two. I guess I just wasn't in the mood, which proves just how out-of-whack things actually are. Usually I love watching any movie, any time. I did finally get to see "Wanted". This is definitely a "popcorn flick", and for what it was, I really liked it. The special effects were pretty impressive, and it had some great scenes. The overall plot was kinda weak, but I was expecting that. The action and effects kept it interesting. I do think it fell apart a little bit at the very end. The whole movie was kinda cheesy, but it was even worse right at the last. I still would definitely recommend watching it. It is a fun movie that you can just sit back and enjoy. I think I was in the perfect mood for this movie last week, so I liked it even more than I otherwise would have.
~Wanted gets 3 stars for a solid action movie... it is what it is, so don't expect too much.
-deric