The Tree is up but not decorated

Posted: December 12, 2009 by datechguy in personal
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We picked it up at Erickson’s Tree farm in Ashby Mass. It turns out the owner’s son is in my youngest son’s class.

His wife is from the Philippines Islands. Ashby Massachusetts is about as far as Mindanao that you can get in both distance and tempature. She was feeling VERY cold out waiting with the trees.

All trees there are a flat $20 each even with ones as big as 15′ or more tall. That is so much cheaper than most other places it is ridiculous. I asked him why he doesn’t charge more, he said he makes enough with what he does charge and times are hard for people right now. What a nice guy.

As he puts it he sells between 300 & 400 trees per years, many are sold the day he opens (1st Sat. in November). People come down and tag their favorites that day and then cut them as Christmas comes closer. From how they described it the first day is like the running of the brides.

I’m being shouted at because I’m told we will never get a good tree again if everyone finds out. Poppycock! He’ll just plant more.

It came down to three trees before my wife made her final selection, a Scotch Pine that looks simply marvelous!

Oh and the lunch was a big hit too, the wife and my old friend hit it off at once, both are crocheters and like women do generally agree about when I’m wrong.

All and all the day seems to be going pretty well. We have a tree to decorate and a lot of stuff to clean so posting will be kinda spotty the rest of the day if at all.

The Heartbreak Kid: Amazon Review

Posted: December 12, 2009 by datechguy in amazon reviews
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My Review of the Farrelly Brothers Farce The Heartbreak Kid, Staring Ben Stiller, Malin Akerman and Michelle Monaghan is available at Amazon.com here.

To say this movie is a comedic farce is the understatement of the year. I presume the Farrelly’s sense of humor is almost as twisted as mine.

I should mention that in my review I neglected to give credit to the actors. There is not a single bad performance in the entire picture. There aren’t a lot of movies that can say that.

The picture made me laugh but also made me angry. Almost none of the people that you meet at the start turn out to be people worth a damn, their bad decisions make a lot of trouble for a lot of people, FUNNY Trouble but still trouble and it leads to bad results.

In a way that is one of the things that make this movie great, stupid decisions have bad results. That just isn’t shown enough these days.

This is a movie worth seeing or renting or whatever.

Today we get the Christmas Tree and meet an old friend for lunch so blogging will likely consist of a few movie reviews scheduled to post.

The tree has to last 25 days so we have to pick carefully. We particularly need it to still look good for the Christmas open house of the 2nd so lets see what happens.

Trade: Amazon Review

Posted: December 12, 2009 by datechguy in amazon reviews
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My review of the movie Trade Staring Kevin Kline is available at Amazon.com here.

If you are getting the DVD I advise skipping as many of the previews as possible, it is a bunch of Michael Moore style documentaries that really puts you in the wrong mood for the film itself.

I think the movie wants to pretend it was a documentary when it was not but it was still wasn’t bad. There were a few good performances (Particularly Kline) and is about a topic that deserves much more attention.