Three words: Em. Night. Shama-lame. That's right, Shyamalan finally gave audiences a follow up to his last amazing film (which was received "really well" across the board), and this time, like the last, he didn't disappoint.

This year's fare is a movie called "The Green Effect" "The Happening." The premise of the story is at some point in time the wind blows and, out of the blue, people stop what they're doing, repeat the last sentence they said about three times, walk backwards and then kill themselves as if they're robots. Sounds like an interesting concept, until M. Night grabs a hold of it. Which is precisely why "The Happening" is getting rotten reviews.

Shama-Lame Problem #1: You Wrote it for Who?
Uhhh, any movie written for Marky Mark (of Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch) that's NOT a "here's where my career tanked" type of movie, is dumb. But that's precisely what Shyamalan did. And what did that get us? An overly horrible performance by an actor that somehow garnered an Oscar nom last year. Without Marky Mark, we wouldn't have had a science teacher bumbling through life with his precious mood ring, spouting out how to effectively decipher an experiment and deliver such classic lines as, "what? no." and "will someone give me a god-damned answer longer than one word!?!"

Shama-Lame Problem #2: Slow Motion
John Leguizamo is in the movie for, oh, 30 minutes and right before he dies he gets the old school slow motion goodbye. Why? I gave two one no shits about his character and he basically decided to off himself. Big deal. Then, again, we have ol' Marky Mark in slow motion screaming and diving towards a kid as the child gets shot. If only he would've dove in real-time, maybe he would've been shot, too.

Shama-Lame Problem #3: Foreshadowing Plots
If there's one thing that we've learned from M. Night, it's that everything in his movies have a purpose. The scenery, the characters and even the lines that are spoken. But this time, it was just too evident, and stupid. Everyone thinks the killings are terrorist attacks. But one person suspects it's the plants. Therefore, it's the plants. And how do we rationalize this? Because there's some plant that when being eaten by caterpillars, will emit some chemical to lure wasps over and kill the caterpillars. And there's your movie. We're caterpillars. Oh, and plants can talk to each other. And they hate us.

Shama-Lame Problem #4: The Moral of the Story
As if plants killing us wasn't silly enough, what's worse is the moral of the story -- natural occurring events happen all the time and we may never know why they happened. WHAT!?! THAT'S your a-ha moment? Shit happens and sometimes we'll never know why? Dude, you just painted yourself into a corner and then decided to break down the wall behind you. That's not how you tell a story! You can't say, "and then the plants tried to kill us, but we lived, and we'll never know why." You'll make people live in fear for the rest of their lives -- you're a terror-monger!

I understand that there ARE some things that we, as real-life humans, can't explain. But you don't get to do that in the movies, not like this. If you're going off the deep end, go off. If not, give us something to grasp onto. And don't even start to say you're Alfred Hitchcock and that you can leave things hanging., you're a far cry.

The redeeming factors of the movie, if these count:

• the gory acts of people killing themselves
• there was no twist ending, again
• Shyamalan wasn't in it

It still blew.

Homework
Since our close date, we decided to do some work since we had a place to stay. The main project was replacing the sub-floor in the bathroom. And by "replacing the sub-floor," I mean replacing not only the sub-floor, but the toilet, bathtub, sink, vanity, walls, storage cabinet, tile, plumbing etc. From what I understand, this is a very common occurrence in the home ownership world. You go to change one little thing and bam, you're knee deep in a full-blown remodel. Yikes, I don't think I could endure that every time I wanted to change something small.

We've done a LOT of painting, too. I'll make sure to post before/after pics at some point so you can all see where our social life has gone.

The Move
On Saturday, Ashlee and I headed over to U-Haul to get our truck. We showed up right at 9:00, which was the scheduled time of truck pick up. This is how our conversation went with the U-Haul guy...

U-Haul Rep: Hi there, how can I help you today?

Smitherson: Yeah, we're here to pick up a truck. We have a reservation at 9:00.

U-Haul Rep: What's the last name?

Smitherson: Smith. Ashlee.

U-Haul Rep: Okay... *typing* Hmmm. I'm not... Hmmm.

Smitherson: What?

U-Haul Rep: I'm not seeing anything.

Smitherson: Huh?

U-Haul Rep: Oh, here it is. I've got you down for tomorrow at 9:30.

Smitherson: That's not right.

U-Haul Rep: That's what it says here.

Smitherson: That can't be right, I called last week to reschedule it for today at 9:00.

U-Haul Rep: Well, I don't know who made that error.

Smitherson: So do you have any open trucks?

U-Haul Rep: No. It's the last of the month. No one will have any.

Smitherson: Great. Okay, how about tomorrow? Can we just come back?

U-Haul Rep: Hang on. *typing* Unfortunately we wouldn't have a truck for you here.

Smitherson: What?

U-Haul Rep: All our trucks will be out.

Smitherson: So is our reservation supposed to be at another location?

U-Haul Rep: No. I've got you down on our schedule.

Smitherson: But you won't have a truck for us?

U-Haul Rep: No.

Smitherson: So what are we supposed to do?

U-Haul Rep: I'm not sure.

How could that happen? Maybe because U-Haul sucks.

We left after that, partially defeated. If U-Haul, THE PLACE THAT WE MADE A RESERVATION WITH, didn't have a truck for us, who would? That was the question and many of the answers were not good. No one in town had a truck on hand for us. Luckily, about an hour later, Budget Truck Rental called us back and got us a truck.

While we were calling around for another truck, we called another city's U-Haul. While looking up the number for U-Haul, we came across a banner (see above thumbnail) on Uhaul.com. Ashlee pretty much salivated at the prospect of sticking it to U-Haul (remember, she's good with this stuff). After a phone call with the district manager (that was able to complete Ash's sentences since they've heard the story many times before) yesterday, our $50 is on its way.

So, we ended up getting everything moved. Shoosh. We no longer have the loft -- turned in the keys yesterday. The house is ours, along with an unfinished bathroom and two cats -- one of which is trying to find every nook and cranny in our place to hide. Seriously, BEHIND the oven? And I though Scoot's dog wanted to commit suicide.

This weekend we'll be painting (as you can see in those photos, it's kind of a necessary thing) and hopefully replacing some bathroom sub-flooring (then adding some new tile -- seen at the right -- it won't be exactly this, but simular... yes, simular). Then the big move is in two weeks.

If you're interested in helping, uh, feel free to give me a shout.

Did you notice anything missing from that preview? Here's a hint, it's quite possibly his best twist yet!

Yup, you guessed it, there was no mention of the last name Shyamalan. Think M. Night has a complex about something?

I reported a while back that after the miserable failure that was "Lady in the Water," that Shyamalan was considering NOT attaching his name to a future project for fear that his name would make people not want to see it. If there's anything that he's good at, it's knowing that people are tired of his movies coming up lame (see "Signs") and his oh-so-special twist endings.

As you noticed in the trailer, it doesn't mention his name... ever. Rather, it mentions the director's two successful films. As an added bonus, it makes note that this is the FIRST rated-R movie from said director. Double bonus, it comes out on Friday the 13th! Whoa, suddenly I give a crap. Not really, nor does Defamer.

What a surprise, the early reviews aren't good, either. Say bye-bye Shama-Lame. Watch out for those tree-monkey-people, they might come down and snatch you up.

1. Find a girl
2. Invite her to your appartments
3. Use subject product V (or C)
4. Have fun
5. Take her number
6. Profit?

More details -> http://togetherlist.com

I know this sounds dumb and not realistic at all. But, I gave it a shot and it worked. I made about $1700 with this advice. Product V is pretty good, Product C is even better. I've had a TON of fun in all of my appartments and have made so much money. Give it a shot, ya'll. Give it a shot.

Bad Movie Night is back in session and how better to start off the season with a movie that was completed in December of 2005, only to be shelved until April of 2008. Couple that with a stupendous rating of 6% on Rotten Tomatoes and you wind up with Al Pacino's latest thriller, “88 Minutes.”

The plot-line is all too familiar – a criminal psychologist puts a killer behind bars, only to be tormented by said killer years later. In this case, the killer (who is in jail on death row) somehow convinces others to do his dirty work and gives Pacino 88 minutes to live.

Crap, I just ruined the film for you. Sorry.

What's worse, this movie had something fundamentally wrong with it – the editors, directors, producers, EVERYBODY, that worked on this film has no concept of time. Honestly. When someone makes a film about someone only having 88 minutes to live, how many minutes do you think they should really have? If it were me, I would go out on a ledge here and suggest they use the full 88 minutes. If you thought like I did (i.e., sanely), you would be wrong.

Luckily, I had my iPod Phone in the theater and we decided to count down the 88 minutes along with the characters in the film. Sure enough, just like a crappy episode of 24, the full 88 minutes never materialized. In fact, they were a full 12 minutes and 36 seconds short. I'm going to demand my money back. That's 12 and a half minutes of Al Pacino thinking he's going to die that I'll NEVER get. Maybe we'll be lucky enough to see that "extra footage" when the DVD is released. HOLD UP!!! I don't have to wait!!! I can already get the DVD in foreign countries!

Forget the fact that the film was shelved for over two years, this isn't wine, it only gets worse as time tick-tocks away. I suppose that when you can't execute the antithesis of your movie for a full 88 minutes, then everything else that sucked is the least of your worries:

• Not creative enough to name a cat? Just call it "kitty."
• Can't find real Asian-American twins? Just get two Asian-American actors and call them twins (most non-Asian people won't know the difference, right?)
• Running out of cat names wasn't enough? Name someone in the film Goober.
• Need a plot device that will progress the story along? Create a technology so you can use a Virgin Mobile phone to break into another cell phone conversation... because THAT'S realistic.
• Need another plot device to progress the story? Hmmm, how about someone who carries around an extra cell phone battery that just happens to fit the phone that Pacino is using?
• If you get in a bind, just do things that don't make sense. Suggestion, drive your car (that has a busted front windshield) away from the crime scene. Then, minutes later, blow it up. Furthering that point, if someone is wanted for two murders, don't arrest them right away. Instead, give them, oh, 10 minutes to solve the case.

When you read reports about a movie getting shelved, and sometimes appearing in foreign countries on DVD, you have to wonder if it's really THAT bad to get shelved in the first place.

In this case, yes, it was. And it only took 1 minute 23 seconds (or 1/88th of the film) to figure that out.

We Close on June 10
First off, yes, I'm getting back into a house and we close on June 10 (as in a little over a week away). This January I finally paid off my credit cards and now I'm looking to sink my finances into something a little more substantial than just a savings account. Ashlee and I will be moving into Hyde Park and the house is nearly 100 years old. It's a bungalow located right across the street from Gillham Park and it came with two surprises — a darkroom and a printing press. Can you say sweetnuts?

Status Updates and Twitter
There was no question that I was a status update whore on Facebook (I even subscribed to the RSS feed so I could read ALL of my friends' updates whenever I wanted to). That addiction turned into a love for Twitter — yes, the site where you can find out who just ate a sandwich. I feel that Twitter is on the verge of becoming something much more than a glorified Facebook-like status aggregator, so I've been utilizing it for a while. We'll see what becomes of it.

Blueberry Yogurt Craze
We've been to the grocery store two times in the past two days, and both times we've witnessed people buying large amounts of blueberry yogurt. Nothing came to mind as to why such quantities were being purchased and a search on Google turned up zero results as well. What gives?

What's that Smell?
I've never experienced this, but does anyone ever get the urge to go number two when they enter a building that has a specific smell? I say it's weird, others disagree.

Sports Flashbacks
The Lakers and the Celtics are in the NBA Finals again after 21 years. The Royals are still sucky. NASCAR is still boring and golf is great napping material.

Mobile Emails
I'm now greatly entrenched into my iPod Phone and have set up an email address (because for whatever reason you can't send photos within text messages on iPhones). You can reach me at iphone [at] sethgunderson.com.

That's all I've got for now. I hope the summer isn't too hot for you, yet, since it's not really even summer. We'll get there. Oh yeah, Bad Movie Night starts up Tuesday!!! I'm hoping to view 10 stinkers this summer.

No one really knows for sure, but that didn't stop me and Parc from making a blog tracking predictions. That's right, head on over to http://whenobamawins.blogspot.com/ to see what we all think will take place after Obama wins the election.

You can even submit your own entry, too. What fun!

It's pretty cool, pretty easy and it can even become the face to your real blog. Now if anyone has seen a site that has all of this (blogging, micro-blogging/status updates, tumbling/sharing) built into it, I'd love to see it.

Oh, and if you want to follow my tumblog (which I'm just going to try for a while), then you can do so at http://sethyg.tumblr.com/.

The tickets were being held for us at will call and we were to pick them up as we got to the game. There was a guy sitting outside of the will call booth and had envelopes full of tickets. He asked us if we were "here for the sponsor party?" We told him that we had to get our tickets from will call and he said, "oh, no, I've got your tickets." Okay then.

He then asked what company we were with, so we said Callahan Creek, seeing that the tickets were coming from friends that work there. He wasn't quite sure about that name, so we offered up the name of the client they work for at Callahan – Community America (yes, the same one on the name of the ballpark). That one made him smile and he grabbed our tickets and then gave us two passes to the sponsor party behind center field.

Not knowing what this party was, and not being able to get in touch with our friend who gave us the tickets, we decided to head back behind center field to see what was up.

I wouldn't so much call it a party, but more like a free dinner and free beer get-together. We grabbed some hot dogs and beers and enjoyed ourselves while texting with our friends, trying to figure out where everyone was.

We finally met up with our friends after the food. They were in section 111. Our tickets said 110. Confused, we asked if there was just a large group of people who came to the game with them. There weren't. We asked if they had gotten food and drink at the party behind center field. They hadn't. We asked if we were supposed to go to will call and not that guy out front for our tickets. They said we should've.

Oops. So to the two people that probably work for Community America that didn't get in for free last night, or have free drinks and food, we're sorry. And we owe you three beers, three hot dogs and some cole slaw.