The Ongoing Saga of Logan's Dave

There was a busy end to last week, hence the lack of blogging, e-mailing, and other forms of contact from yours truly. Apologies all around. Here's the recap:

Let us first Walk the Line. As many of you are acutely aware, I am a big Johnny Cash fan. I am also not the biggest fan of dramatic adaptations of my heroes. I was skeptical when Miracle came out, but warmed up instantly to it when I got to see it.

Friday night, I took the train up to Evanston to see Walk the Line with my friend A. We had a couple drinks in the bar of the theatre beforehand, and caught up on our respective weeks. We report to each other on a regular basis about, well, everything. She gives me good advice, I try to give her mine, she lends a kind ear to me, and I to her.

We walked into the movie, which was surprisingly crowded, and grabbed seats. After 15 minutes of previews, I was coming close to recreating a Homer Simpson moment and chanting "stop the madness, start the movie!" Fortunately, the part of my brain that regulates my behavior kicked in, and I managed to calm down.

The movie, all and all, is good. I was a little disappointed in Joaquin Phoenix's performance, but I was more than thrilled with Reese Witherspoon. I was amazed that both actors learned to sing and play their respective instruments, but she was definitely much better than he was. She also played June Carter extremely well. I was blown away with her performance.

I've seen it written elsewhere, and in every interview I've seen with Joaquin, he mentions that it was really hard to play a person like Johnny Cash. He's right. It was a tough role, and he probably had reservations about playing a legend like Johnny, but it came through in his performance. I wouldn't say I was disappointed, but I certainly was not impressed.

My favorite parts of the movie were seeing how songs were written- how inspiration suddenly stuck both Johnny and June. That was fun for me, rediscovering where these songs came from. I quite enjoyed that.

I plan on seeing the movie again, with another friend, as well as potentially seeing it again this weekend while I'm with my family for Thanksgiving. I think another viewing will probably be helpful.

During the day on Friday, my roommate called to give me her football picks for the weekend, and to report that the furnace, which we had just turned on Wednesday night, was outputting quite a horrible smell. I told her I would check it out when I got home, and that if it got too bad, to turn off the heat until I could check it out. I didn't know I was going to post-movie drinks, and I certainly didn't know I was going for as many as I did, but A and I had some things to talk about, so we had more than a few drinks each. I got home around 12 and noticed a very unpleasant smell.

The smell wasn't something that would be generated by a furnace, however. It was more like an electrical fire or burning rubber. I took a peek at the furnace, and sure enough, everything was fine. I sniffed around each of the vents, and couldn't detect much of an odor. I figured whatever was wrong was dissipating, so I went to bed.

Saturday morning, I got up and went to my computer, and for the second week in a row, discovered a problem. I sat down, and wondered why my monitor was off. I hit the button, no response. I checked the tower, and it was running. I figured either myself or my cat had knocked the power cord out. Nope. Still in. Then, I noticed the same horrible stench I had the night before, only much, much stronger. I looked at the top of my monitor, where Mia likes to sleep. There was some vomit on the top. There was vomit down one side. There was also vomit on the monitor stand. It is physically impossible for her to puke on the top of the monitor and hit the monitor stand, unless the vomit traveled through the monitor. Then, it dawned on me: she puked on my monitor, and it shorted out the monitor. It explained the horrible electrical-fire stench and the functionless monitor. I swore, once or twice, under my breath, then out loud, just for good measure. Mia came out, still half-asleep and mewed at me. I was less than happy with her, so I told her to go back to bed, which she did. Probably the best move she could have made. I set about cleaning up dried cat vomit as best I could.

My roommate came out and asked me what was up. I related the story to her, and said that it was high time we went to Micro Center to see if I can find a cheap replacement. Off we went, and shopping commenced. Sadly, the cheap monitors they had were all refurbished, and none of them were particularly appealing to me. I finally selected a flatscreen monitor, which had the advantage of not allowing a cat to sleep or puke on top of it, so I ponied up the big bucks. Unfortunately, I had also taken my card out of my wallet the night before, and left it in my shirt from the previous night, so after making an extra trip, I bought the monitor, and set it up.

Mia is a little upset that she lost her second favorite place to sleep, but she's getting used to the new setup. I'm pissed off because the money I spent on a new monitor I was going to spend on an upcoming trip, not to mention an hockey game next weekend.

I stayed in on Saturday night, instead of going to the Wolves game. I tried to not spend any money yesterday, but I was less than successful. This is gonna be a long week of staying in and being good. Thank goodness I'll be out at the farm this weekend, enjoying the country air and the cheap drinking.