Issue #65: PSA-Don't Forget the Keys When You Lock the House.
At least I had the dog with me.
Welcome back, everybody!
Just a quick breakdown of the blog for any new readers:
I ramble for a bit and give an update on my life and what I’m thinking about this week
I talk about the movies I watched recently (usually in the last week, but I’m still catching up)
I do some rankings, ask some hypothetical questions (ex: what are the chances my dad cries while watching this movie?), and then I give my no frills, no jokes review
We ignore grammar errors here at the blog. Give me a break.
Also, please subscribe and share with your friends. It’s FREE, and I really appreciate the support, it means a lot.
What up, what up, what up.
Happy Thursday, everyone. See, I told you I’d get a 2nd blog out this week. You all doubted me (I could hear your whispers from here), but I did it. The chances I get 2 blogs out next week?
…
Computing…
…
Chances: Very low.
So enjoy it while it lasts.
Let’s jump right in. Not too long of an intro today because we have a lot to get to and some GREAT movies that I tangentially talk about later.
I haven’t even told my parents about this.
A few weeks ago, I house/dog sat. When I didn’t have a job, I got on this app called Rover, which is like TaskRabbit, but for dog walkers. It’s the best thing ever. If you know me, you know that I love animals, especially dogs. At a party, I’m the cliche person who finds the dog and spends the entire night hanging out with it. Don’t believe me?
(If any of the Houses are reading this, yes, that’s your dog. He/she was not as scared as he looks in that picture, I swear).
Ok, so I love dogs, and I am on this app called Rover. A few weeks ago, I got a request to housesit while this guy, we’ll call him Chris (because that’s his name), was out of town. Chris’s place was pretty close to my house (this fact will resurface in a bit), so I accepted. I started on Friday after work. Jack (that’s the dog’s name) is the boy, a good boy, one might say. Chris just adopted him from a Chinese dog farm (I swear to god, no joke) a month ago, so he’s a bit hyper, but he loves humans (strange coming from the Chinese dog farm). We hit it off immediately.
But our story doesn’t really begin until Saturday night.
I had just seen Sinners that afternoon, and vibes were high. First, I walked home from the theater. Then, I packed food for the night, went to the grocery store, and drove to Jack’s. Once I was at Jack’s, I took him for a short walk, and once I got back, I started making dinner. At this point, it was around 8:30 pm. For dinner, I made a bomb-ass chicken sandwich, a salad, an apple, and a bowl of chili. It was a feast fit for a king. I sat down on the couch with my spread in front of me, getting ready to settle in for the night and watch a movie, when I figured I should take Jack out for a quick bathroom break before I got settled.
Here’s where our story really begins.
I hooked Jack up to his leash, grabbed my phone and AirPods, and walked outside. As I walked outside, purely out of habit, I turned that little thing on the doorknob that locks it. This thing:
Notice how, in my list of things that I brought outside with me, I did not mention keys of any kind.
It was one of those instances of instant and immediate regret. When I realized what I’d done, I frankly couldn’t believe it. I thought it was a prank, except that would mean that I’d pranked myself, which didn’t make any sense. I sat there for a few minutes just testing the knob to make sure it was actually locked. My thinking was, if I tried enough times, maybe, just maybe, it would magically unlock. Or if I stayed there long enough, it would act like the toys in Toy Story, but instead of coming to life, it would unlock.
It was a bad situation. The only spare key was inside, on my key ring. Chris, (the guy I was house/dogsitting for) was in Louisiana, and it was close to 1:00 am there. I tried texting him. No response. The worst part, though?
My uneaten dinner was sitting there just staring at me through the window. I hadn’t even taken a bite of the dinner that I had just slaved over, and I was stuck outside without the ability to eat it.
The good thing was that I had Jack. If I didn’t have Jack with me I’d really be freaking out. All the while, as I’m having a mini panic attack, the big guy is just staring at me, tongue out, smiling the dumb smile that never leaves his face. For context, here’s Jack:
He sits like that all the time, by the way.
I assessed my options. Here’s what I came up with:
Call a locksmith
Wait to see if Chris would respond and magically have an extra key under the mat that I knew wasn’t there
Find another tenant, ask them for the Super’s number, and try to get the Super to let me in
Option #3 was immediately crossed off the list. There was no way in hell I had the courage or could withstand the embarrassment of walking up to someone’s door at 11:00 pm on a Saturday night, knocking on it, and asking them if they could help me get into someone’s apartment because I LOCKED MYSELF OUT.
I’m such an idiot.
Next up was option #2. I waited for what I thought was a reasonable amount of time before I admitted defeat. Finally, it was time to call the locksmith. What did he say? Exactly what I thought he’d say, which was that he needed verbal consent from the owner to let me in. Verbal consent that I did not have. I asked if some texts and the guy’s literal dog would suffice.
It did not.
So I was resigned to secret option #4
Walk home
Which is exactly what Jack and I did.
We made the 2+ mile trek back to my house in the middle of Saturday night. Thankfully, it wasn’t cold, because I was in a t-shirt and shorts. A $10 Star Wars shirt from Target and lacrosse shorts with paint and holes on them, I might add. What? I didn’t expect to see anyone for the rest of the night.
It was somewhat of an all-time low for your boy. For Jack, though? He was in heaven. New smells, new sights, and new experiences galore. He must have stopped every 5 steps to smell something new or roll around in the grass next to the sidewalk. Thank god I had my phone so I could text one of my roommates to let me in, but more importantly, so I could listen to music on the walk. The soundtrack for the Walk of Shame was a collection of Daft Punk, Grateful Dead, Gracie Abrams, The Doors, and the Wu-Tang Clan.
I was jamming, dancing, and singing my heart out during my walk. Why not? My dignity had gone out the window a long time ago.
All in all, it wasn’t the worst walk ever. I was talking to Jack the entire time like we were some old married couple, even though he never responded to me. After an hour or so, I made it to my apartment, was let in, and felt loads better. If I hadn’t been close to my place, I don’t know what I would’ve done. At this point, I was ravenous, so I made a new dinner, this one consisting of a turkey sandwich and a bowl of Lucky Charms. Not as glamorous as my uneaten feast, but it got the job done. My job wasn’t done yet, though. The last hurdle was getting Jack up to my room. Here’s the staircase up to my room for context:
I’m gonna answer your question before you get a chance to ask it:
No, I don’t have a bathroom in my room.
And yes, it sucks having to walk up and down that staircase every time I need to use the bathroom.
What sucks even worse is having to deal with a 75-pound Golden Retreiver who can’t figure out how to walk up these steps.
So I carried him up like I was Fezzick and he was Princess Buttercup in The Princess Bride.
In the end, everything ended up being okay. Jack and I slept in my room that night (I brought a water bowl up for him, don’t worry). The next morning, I coordinated with Chris; he got me connected with someone who had an extra key, I walked Jack back to his house, and the guy with the extra key let me in. I dogsat till Wednesday of that next week. Every time I left the house after the incident, I made 100% sure that I:
a. Had the key
b. Didn’t lock the door until I was outside
Housesitting is fun.
Update: As I was writing this, Chris asked if I could help out again with Jack in a couple of weeks. I guess locking yourself out of a house you’re supposed to be looking after isn’t so big of a deal after all.
🚨New Section Alert🚨
Back in February, I wrote a blog. You can read that blog here:
In the intro of that blog, I wrote about how I had just registered my car in California and how I had gotten California plates to replace my Maryland ones. I then continued to wax poetic about the Maryland flag. At the end of the intro to that blog, I said, quote,
“I’ll get a state flag ranking out soon. Look out for that.”
After 3 months, here we are.
Here’s my idea: in every blog, I’m going to add 2-3 more flags to my rankings, starting from the worst. If this is stupid and you guys don’t like it, I’ll abandon it. If you like it, I’ll keep it up until we get to #1.
Alright, let’s get this started with #50.
Connecticut
I bet that you didn’t know what the Connecticut flag looks like. I bet that, even if you live in Connecticut, you didn’t know what your flag looks like. I’m not gonna lie, there are some really bad flags, so it was hard to make these rankings, but this was an easy pick for worst. If you’re gonna go with the “seal-in-the-middle-of-your-flag” route, at least make it something interesting. Grape vines? Really? That’s the best we could do?
Massachusetts
Sticking in the northeast here (a trend that, spoiler alert, will continue in next week’s blog). Like #50, I’ve never seen this flag before in my life. Honestly, I always imagined the Massachusetts state flag as a flag with a big clover in the middle, so this was a surprise (the clover flag would have easily been a top-10 state flag). This one and the next few are pretty interchangeable, but this one bores me more than the others, so it gets #49.
Alright, that’s all for today. It’s like a morphine drip. I’m only giving you a little bit at a time. Hopefully, you’ll get addicted to it and will want to see what I reveal next time.
Check back next week, where we’ll keep it going with #48 and #47 (and maybe #46).
Alright, let’s get on with the blog.
I made a new website. It’s basically the same as the old Vault, but it’s been given a makeover, and the movies and documentaries I watched in 2024 are now available as well. If you check it ou,t please give me suggestions on how I can make it better. And let me know if there are any issues I need to fix.
Check it out here!
Alright, on to the blog.
Movies count for the year: 73
Doc count for the year: 9
Total movie count on the blog: 289
Running It Back
Today, we continue grinding through the movies I watched, or in this case, rewatched, in 2024.
Only about 30 left…
Independence Day (1996)
AKA: Aliens.
In my neighborhood (I know half of you reading this live there, but the other half don't, so let me explain), the 3rd of July is the "big night" of 4th of July weekend. It's the night we do fireworks, the night the “adults” go to bars, and the night when high schoolers get chased around the neighborhood by security/police (I may or may not speak from experience). But that's not to say that the 4th itself is without its festivities.
The day starts early with a parade around the whole neighborhood. If you make it on time for the parade, that's great; if you don't, then you make the trek up to the first fairway, where you can have your annual 9:00 am hot dog, a tradition unlike any other. The next couple of hours consist of 1-2 more hot dogs, recaps of the night before with friends, and watching the camp-aged kids (did I mention that there's a summer camp in my neighborhood?) do relay races. We also used to do turtle races back in the day (2x champ, medium-sized division, no big deal), but the PETA police got that shut down a few years ago (never forget what they took from you).
I'm trying to explain all of this in as few words as possible, so if it sounds cultish at all, it’s merely a byproduct of that, definitely not for any other reason.
It’s 11:00 now. The parade/first fairway activities are over. Next up on the itinerary is dealer's choice. You can try your hand at the long drive/closest to the pin contest (an event I used to help run back in the day). You can have lunch with your family. You can go to a luncheon where you're the youngest there by 50+ years (that's what I used to do when I was younger, begrudgingly). But the most fun thing you can do is take part in a big fat pier day. Head down to the pier and toss back a couple beers with your friends. Swimming, rafting, maybe a little bit of roofnut...you can't ask for a better day. A big fat pier day is one of the best days on the calendar every year.
So now it's dinner time. You're a little bit sunburnt, hungry, and maybe, just maybe, slightly buzzed. First, you shower. Then, you scrounge together dinner. At this point, it's starting to get dark, so you go watch the fireworks that they set off down the river at the Naval Academy (from a distance). They're not as good as the ones you watched the night before, but then again, they're probably exactly the same as the ones you saw the night before because all fireworks are pretty much the same (sorry to burst your bubble).
So now it's 9:00 pm. Some of your friends are still riding the high from the day and are trying to keep the party going. Sure, you could go out, but you know what's even better?
Firing up Independence Day with your sister and watching one of the best popcorn movies of all time on the day it’s named after.
That's what I did last summer, and I couldn't have been happier with my decision.
Hit it:
Getting me ready to run through a brick wall.
Mount Rushmore of Aliens I’d Like to Chill and Have a Beer With:
Easiest Mount Rushmore ever.
ET
Yoda
Spock
Groot
Honorable Mentions: Megamind, Superman, Venom, Stitch, The Iron Giant
Do They Say the Title of the Movie In the Movie: You just saw it. Might be the best one of all time.
Chance My Dad Cries While Watching This: 100% (I definitely didn’t start tearing up while watching that speech in the Starbucks I’m writing in)
No, But Really: I think this movie is in the running for best “popcorn movie” of all time. Is it the best film of all time? By no means, but it is about as entertaining of a movie as you can get. The Will Smith/Jeff Goldblum dynamic is stellar, the effects hold up surprisingly well for the most part, and it’s just a whole lot of fun. I can guarantee you’ll have a good time watching this movie.
Meet the Parents (2000)
AKA: Nightmare.
This is quietly rising in the rankings of movies I've seen the most in my life. It's nowhere near movies like Star Wars, Toy Story, Raiders, Die Hard, Jurassic Park, or Ferris Bueller's Day Off, but I've watched this movie in 4 of the last 6 years, and that's just counting the times since I've started tracking what I watch (2018). This time, I watched it on a plane. I think if you checked on every major airline that offered in-flight entertainment, Meet the Parents would be available to watch on every plane. I can't verify that statement, but I stand by it. This is a picture-perfect airplane movie. It's hilarious, easy to watch, and isn't a movie you need to watch on a big screen. It's become a comfort movie for me, and I don't see that changing anytime soon.
Now, I've never had in-laws that I've had to meet before, but I have met the parents of my ex-girlfriends, and I can only imagine that it's a similar experience to meeting one's in-laws. How can you prepare? Answer:
You can't.
You just have to be confident in the fact that you are walking into the belly of the beast. You are going into a place where you are an outsider, and you must do your best to be allowed into the pack, the pride, or whatever animal analogy you want to make. The best comparison I can think of off the top of my head is Dune.
Paul Atreides must prove himself in combat before he is welcomed into the Fremen clan as one of their own. Meeting a significant other's parents is the same. You must go through a test of will and combat, except the combat is typically a family dinner, and the test of will is the interrogation that is administered during dinner. There are 4 ways this interrogation can go:
1. The mom is the good cop, and the dad is the bad cop
2. The mom is the bad cop, and the dad is the good cop
3. They're both good cops
4. They're both bad cops
In a perfect world, you get situation #3. But this is not a perfect world. So, in a realistic world, you gotta hope for #1 or #2, and that the bad cop isn't like De Niro's character in Meet the Parents. Good luck to all of my newly dating or newly engaged couples who get the opportunity to meet your significant other's parents, if you're stressed, my advice is to watch this movie, because I can assure you that there is no way you have as bad of a first impression as Ben Stiller has in this movie.
Bonus Thing I Forgot to Mention Earlier:
There’s a scene in this movie that centers around the song “Puff the Magic Dragon”. I will never be able to watch this movie or hear that song without thinking about how my parents called me Puff when I was born before they picked a name for me. I think about that all the time.
Do They Say the Title of the Movie In the Movie: They do not. This one might have been tough to squeeze in there.
Chance My Dad Cries While Watching This: 49%
No, But Really: For a movie as awkward and cringey as this one, it’s silently become one of my go-to rewatches. I think De Niro is legitimately hilarious in this movie, and Ben Still is perfect at playing Ben Stiller characters (it makes sense when you think about it). There’s something in this movie for everyone, and I think it’s eternally relatable. Perfect for any movie night, especially a date night.
Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)
AKA: Hawaii looks like a great place to go when you’re sad.
On my cross-country road trip back in August, I watched 11 movies. I've written about 7 of them (The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Clue, Working Girl, Apocalypse Now, Rango, Bottoms, Casino). I'm gonna get through the other 4 in the next couple of blogs, starting with this one.
I watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall on the first night of my road trip in Columbus, Ohio. It was the first half of a double feature that included The Super Mario Bros. Movie. Two wildly different movies for two wildly different audiences, but I'll tell you, I've had double features that go together way worse than these two. FSM is similar to Meet the Parents in the fact that I've seen it a surprising number of times, and it will always be a comfort movie for me. I also think this is one of the pound-for-pound funniest movies I've ever seen. It's right up there with Superbad for funniest of the 2000s, and I like its chances against a slew of competition. I would like to talk about 2 things real fast before we move on.
1. The Judd Apatow movie machine. Unless you've been living under a rock for the last 25 years or are in elementary school (though I don't think that's really in my reader base), you are almost certainly aware of Judd Apatow as a filmmaker. In case you aren't aware, allow me to educate you. Here are just a few of the movies he wrote, produced, or directed since 2004: Anchorman, The 40-Year Old Virgin, Talladega Nights, Knocked Up, Walk Hard, Superbad, Pineapple Express, Step Brothers, Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
Oh, did I say 25 years?
All of those were in a 5-year span from 2004-2009. And those are just the good ones! The 8-year run of Judd Apatow from 2004-2012 should be studied in all film schools. Everything he touched turned to gold during that stretch (even the bad movies), and he minted a number of actors who are still stars. Which brings us to the second thing I want to talk about…
2. Jason Segel. I love Jason Segel. He's arguably the best part of How I Met Your Mother (it's between him and Barney), and he is hysterical in Forgetting Sarah Marshall (which he also wrote!). I bring up Segel after Judd Apatow, because he was one of Apatow's guys. After Freaks and Geeks (a fantastic show that was cancelled too soon), which Segel starred in when he was 19(!), he appeared in Apatow (and Apatow-adjacent) stuff during the 2000s and early 2010s. After some time in the wilderness since the end of HIMYM, I'm glad to see that he's all the way back in the spotlight with Shrinking.
But what I really want to talk about before we move on is Segel's love of The Muppets. I'm sure all of you (especially my fellow Gen Zers) are familiar with his work in The Muppets (2011) (which he co-wrote!). The guy loves the Muppets and I think that's awesome. He loves them so much that the final act of this movie randomly becomes a puppet show. If you haven't seen it, I won't spoil it, but it's as absurd as you can imagine. DJ, spin that shit:
Do They Say the Title of the Movie In the Movie: No. That would have been a strange thing for someone to say.
Chance My Dad Cries While Watching This: 3%
No, But Really: A stone-cold, ironclad comedy classic for me. 99.9% of people have gone through a breakup before, and this is by far the funniest breakup movie of all time. There are too many funny people in this movie to count. Also, Mila Kunis and Kristen Bell have always been major crushes of mine. Everyone should watch this movie. Great date movie too.
Movies at Home
Inching ever closer to having no life. I watched this one over the summer.
The Equalizer II (2018)
AKA: Denzel fucks some shit up 2.0.
All the way back on August 23, 2023, I wrote about The Equalizer. In that blog, I mentioned that I watched The Equalizer because the 3rd installment in the franchise was coming to theaters in a couple of weeks. Well, it's been more than a year and a half, and I'm finally talking about The Equalizer II. I was originally going to talk about this film and Equalizer III in a future section of Franchise Mode, but I figured that since I only had 2 to write about, I'd knock them out in the next two blogs and finally cross them off the list.
Something else I mentioned in that original blog with The Equalizer was that I would get back to you all on whether I ultimately enjoy these movies or the John Wick movies better. After much deliberation (no deliberation needed), I've confirmed that I enjoy the Wick franchise more (we'll see if Ballerina changes that in a couple of weeks). But that's not what I want to talk about today. First, I have to say that the final third of this movie takes place during a hurricane at a beach town. It also features Denzel and Pedro Pascal. The fact that this movie only has a 52% on Rotten Tomatoes is an absolute travesty, because I don't know if you can come up with a better two-sentence description of a movie set-piece.
What I need to point out is that I called my shot in that blog about The Equalizer. In that entry, I implored that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences add a Best Stunt category to the Oscars. Flash forward 20 months, and guess what? There will be a Best Stunt category at the 2026 Oscars! Will they undoubtedly mess it up and give it to a stunt that has no business winning the award? Almost certainly. But will it be cool to finally honor the stuntpeople who have brought audiences so many thrills for over 100 years of movies? Certainly.
Can I take all of the credit for this update to the Oscars? Of course not, but you can bet your ass I'll take a little bit of it.
Do They Say the Title of the Movie In the Movie: They don’t say “The Equalizer” in any of the the Equalizer movies. What a waste.
Chance My Dad Cries While Watching This: 0%
No, But Really: If you like action movies where a guy turns into an invincible killing machine…this is for you. Denzel is ridiculously overqualified for these movies, and he elevates them to be pretty damn entertaining. These movies don’t make you think to hard, so turn your brain off and watch Denzel be an action-star bad ass. Can’t think of many things more fun than that.
Franchise Mode
Tom Cruise and the Quest for the Perfect Stunt 3.0
You can catch up by reading last blog’s Franchise Mode here
Today’s Stunt?
Jumping off a building in Shanghai (after this one, he really ramps it up).
Mission: Impossible III (2006)
AKA: Masks. And Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Last blog, we talked about Mission: Impossible II (the worst in the franchise). Today, we're covering Mission: Impossible III (the 2nd worst in the franchise). That's not to say that either of these movies is bad; in fact, they're better than most franchise movies, but compared to the heights of the others in the franchise, they can't even compare. Also, similarly to M:I II, I couldn't really tell you the plot of this movie. The biggest thing from this movie that I, and everyone else who has seen this movie, can recall is Phillip Seymour Hoffman. It's a shame that PSH is stuck in one of the lesser movies in this M:I franchise, but he is far and away the best villain from the franchise by a country mile. I still don't know if I agree that he is one of the best actors of his generation, but when he does shit like the stuff he does in this movie, it's harder for me to argue with the take.
Though I hadn't seen this movie all the way through until last year, there is a scene that I saw years ago when my dad was channel surfing that has stuck with me to this day. I don't remember how old I was, and I don't think I had seen any Mission: Impossible movies at this point, but I saw a mask scene from M:I III, and it completely broke my brain. Again, I don't know how old I was when I saw it, but for an impressionable youngling like myself, seeing a person who looks and sounds nothing like Tom Cruise suddenly reveal that he is, in fact, a person who looks and sounds exactly like Tom Cruise was amazing. I'd like to think that I was at the age to know that that didn't actually happen, but the fact that I can still remember the scene in my head like it was yesterday, I think there may have been some doubt in little Will's mind on whether what I saw was real or just movie magic.
The mask technology in Mission: Impossible is just one of the reasons why these movies are so awesome. They know the tech is ridiculous. They know that it makes no logical sense. They know that it's all mumbo jumbo bullshit. They don't even try to explain or justify it.
None of that matters.
These movies are awesome despite all of that. When they pull off a mask scene in this movie, especially a mask scene that you didn't even know was a mask scene until the end, it's some of the most thrilling stuff in a movie, period. I love movies that make me hit this pose and audibly say "holy shit what just happened!"
I think I've done it at least once in every Mission: Impossible movie.
Tom Cruise sure knows how to make an entertaining movie.
Do They Say the Title of the Movie In the Movie: What do you think?
Chance My Dad Cries While Watching This: 74%
No, But Really: While not much specifically sticks out in my brain from this movie, Philip Seymour Hoffman’s villain performance is one for the ages. This is also the most human we get to see Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt in any of the M: I movies. It’s an aspect of the character that is certainly missed in future movies. While I think there are better action/spy options to watch, including multiple in this franchise, this is a perfectly good movie that is worth the watch and is a great one to stop on if you’re channel surfing.
-Working inside all day when it’s 75 and sunny out sucks.
—We’re about to be in a great stretch of new movies
—-I get to see my family in a couple days (very happy)
-—-I love da movies.
——-Subscribe or you’re lame.
