After Christmas II: And Approaching New Years

I'm here at home right now, hoping to go fireworks shopping/other stuff for a decent New Year's Eve.

I've worried about Kmart and Sears (closings so far: nothing too shocking, a few attached to C-list malls, Sears Essentials looks finished), though talk of what next concerns me too. Cutting inventory and more sub-leasing? I'm looking forward to Eddie Lampert, who essentially bought Kmart in bankruptcy and bought Sears, getting the boot, as he took huge raises while presiding over 18 consecutive losing quarters.

I've attached this cool shot of the 1996 Kmart website to reminisce on things gone by, and can't quite figure out what it is: do they prepare pizza in that? Is it like Subway, where they prepare it in front of your eyes, or that sushi place in town I have yet to try (if ever).


Elsewhere, I visited Michigan in 2010, but I didn't explore at all Grosse Point, Michigan, a charming-looking place on the edge of Detroit.


Check out Google Maps and explore the "Village", the downtown area, which actually looks pretty healthy and functional: Einstein Bros. Brothers, Starbucks, a dentist office, Gap, Ace Hardware, Borders (sorry, not anymore), and a street-front Kroger.



This has a bit of parking in the back and was a very cramped store, though recently, it was demolished and rebuilt as a two-level store (it now has a basement). Unfortunately, this meant that the facade is now completely different, and all but one of the employees left. Whoops.

Speaking of Google Maps, recently they changed the design of their Interstate and Highway logos to a thinner font. This is what they used to look like:


My brother left for Tennessee today. He sadly had to return the bottle of whiskey to the liquor store (as mentioned yesterday) and almost got his spices that he bought in Houston confiscated by TSA agents (they have been known to do unscrupulous things), which we all hate, but deep down they're just trying do their job, and don't have anything against people, most of them, anyway (my father once had a run-in with a particularly nasty TSA agent that taunted him over a small tube of toothpaste that was technically legal, and I have a feeling that she probably victimized others, too).

While digging around in the attic, we found an old picture that was on fired terra-cotta (or something) "by" me when I was younger (I think my grandfather helped me with my finger). I won't show it with you, but it looked a LOT like the "Red John" face. It was even in a light maroon color.



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Time will tell what I want to do in Carbonizer! in 2012. It will be either grand or shut down. But lets try it out!

After Christmas

I'm sorry I didn't do a "Carbonizer Christmas", though to tell you, I have a better Christmas this year than last: not better gifts, mind you, though I think the stuff was better. A pound of Community Coffee New Orleans Blend (would go great with beignets!), a new clipboard, "Images of America: College Station", "Reimagining Detroit", "Wrapped Up FoxTrot", a remote control flying shark (inflatable!), helium and balloons, the Logo Board Game (more on that another day), some weird flavored straws for milk, some JellyBellys, a pizza stone, an iPod cable that I wanted to replace my current one that's patched up with electrical tape except it turned out to be a bulky hand-me-down that I wanted to avoid, and a homemade wearable blanket.

It should be noted that in addition, I got some Spam from Hawaii and a reusable Kmart bag (also from Hawaii).

All in all, pretty good. My brother got a bottle of Jack Daniels that he can't take on the airplane home (among other things, of course), my aunt donated a gag gift ("365 Ways to Go Green", and given that we're all independents or conservatives, we all took a look at it and passed it on), I gave my cousin some bacon-flavored popcorn (among other things), and all in all, good times. We watched a few movies during the time (Muppet Treasure Island, which I've seen dozens of times but I don't pass up, Kung Fu Panda 2, and Red), played games (Mario Kart 64, Mario Party 8)


Miscellany:

This is my inferior picture of some groovy flooring exposed by building demolition. My brother had the superior camera and produced a way better (and way bigger, storage-wise) picture. Due to the fact that I signed an NDA, I can't tell you where I was, or what I was doing there.




Lightning McQueen here seems to have gained some weight, and he doesn't quite comprehend what he's done.





And more is yet to come...! (Happy Boxing Day, everyone!)

Sequels Suck

I thought Cars 2 wasn't great, but by far, Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil is a far worse sequel than Cars 2 ever was. The original Hoodwinked! was enjoyable and fun, but the second isn't. To sum it quickly, the fun of the original was having the characters not appear who they really look like. It used a rather novel way of telling the same story four times, each from the view of a different character, and if you rewatched it, you could catch details that make it more obvious as to what's going on. But HT!, in development for years, doesn't really have that same punch. Rather, a crummy plot with incredibly bad pacing replaces it. The voices for Red and Kirk are different, and some running jokes that aren't funny reminded me of what happened to Homestar Runner before they stopped updating, they just couldn't leave some one-shot jokes alone (Peacey P being a notable example), and the result was detrimental. While there were a few funny jokes in there, and it's not as bad, as say, I don't know, Bee Movie, but HT! sucked and a sorry way to effectively kill the franchise.