I'm becoming a coffee snob

This is kind of pathetic really. I won't say I am proud of it at all. I even assured myself that I would not become like this. I don't drink coffee frequently, maybe once or twice a week at most and the concept of paying 3 or 4 bucks for a cup seems to border on lunacy. But I am becoming a snob for Starbucks coffee. It's just too good. I started with decaf a few years ago but that did not cut it. Then I went to the mild side, caffeine but lighter on the taste. About six months back I started hitting the hard stuff, bold and extra bold. Sweet nectar of Zeus, that stuff is amazing. No one else gets it quite right, at least that I can tell, and I find myself comparing everybody else to Starbucks. I've stopped with Mocha this and Frapa that. Just a straight cup of coffee ($1.92 for a venti) with a lot of sweetener and milk. Good stuff.

I felt very 21st Century yesterday. I went to Starbucks to get some reading done for my class. I had my sling backpack, my IPod, my venti coffee, and I read. So am I conforming or just enjoying the luxuries of the early part of the 21st Century?

My wife and kids have been out of town for a few days so I've had a chance to catch up on a few movies that I wanted to watch. One was decent, one not that good, and one just plain awful.

Decent - Lucky Number Slevin - I was prepared to not like this one but it surprised me. Bruce Willis is almost always good but Josh Hartnett did a good job as well. Lucy Lui was a little over the top. It was put together well and didn't drag on for too long and had enough of a plot twist (though you could see it coming to some extent) that you stayed with it.

Not so good - The Harvest - I'll say up front that I like just about anything John Cusack is in. Gross Pointe Blank is awesome. But this movie just didn't quite get it done. Tried to be very noirish but ended up just being kind of weird and out of place. I think they were going for a little Coen brothers kind of vibe like Fargo but missed it a bit. Billy Bob Thorton was okay, but it's kind of the same character he's played in about five other movies. The redeeming part is Oliver Platt who, though drunk all of the time, at least gave me something to laugh at.

Plain awful - The Wicker Man (new version) - This movie was terrible. Not scary in the least and I think that the director may have inadvertantly allowed Nick Cage to make fun of the film, either that or old Nick was doing the worst acting of his life (including Con Air). About 20 minutes in I started figuring out where this was going and little on this crazy island was even remotely scary. It was like a bad joke that no one got. The dialogue was awful and the ending was ridiculous. Spoiler alert!!! Sample line...Cage, allergic to bees, has been captured by the women folk who plan to sacrifice him (sorry to give this away but save yourself the time) and they put a bag full of bees on his head (ridiculous enough). Then Nick starts yelling, "Not the bees. Oh God not the bees. Oh no, I can feel them in my nose and in my mouth. Oh God, the bees!" If you want to listen to Cage describe death using no metaphors, only literal play by play of what is happening, then this is the movie for you. If you would like to save yourself 90 minutes, don't watch it. I don't know if the original is any better but I am not going to find out.

Here's hoping that The Squid and the Whale is better. That's just arrive from Netflix.