Not sure this is an improvement

If you're as old as I am, you remember a time when, let's say you wanted someone to mow your lawn or you wanted to get a lawnmower repaired, you would open up a phone book, go to the Yellow Pages and look up lawn care or lawn mowing or lawn services or some such and make some phone calls.

Same with lawn mower repair -- go to the Yellow Pages and look up lawn mower repair or small engine repair and contact the various companies listed there. Or as in my small town, you would drive down to the small business neighborhood and find the guy that did small engine/lawn mower repair, drop your mower off and get it fixed.

Now, of course, everything is better because we have cell phones and apps and search engines. It's so last century to open a book and turn pages and stuff. Just type in what you need and violá it's all at your fingertips. Get with the times old man.

yeah

So I needed my lawnmower repaired and concurrently needed my yard mowed as well, because my one year old Sears mower wouldn't start this year when I went to use it for the first time. My other mower, that I had for 20 years was also a Sears mower. I've been using mowers from Sears since I was 15. Never had a problem. My old mower was a tank. Every year I'd sharpen the blade like a ninja, clean and gap the plug, make a new air filter and dump a little gumout in the tank. As it aged, you had to pump the primer about 10 times instead of 5, but it fired up on the first pull. Every year. For twenty years.

New piece of sh*t? Nope. Use it for one season and now nothing. Guess you're supposed to either throw it away and buy a new one each year or pay the equivalent amount to get it repaired each year. We'll see.

Anyway, I go online, 'cause we don't have phone books anymore, and do the seach engine thing. Supposedly this is an improvement. I get a bunch of paid advertisements for companies nowhere near my area. Then I get a bunch of aggregate companies -- Angie's List, Thumbtack, Home Advisor, etc., that have pre-screened lawn care professionals for me.

yeah

After tossing out the guys that wanted $100+ to mow my lawn, I narrowed it down to five companies. Of course you can't just call them, how old-fashioned of you old man, you IM them through the service and await their response.

waiting . . . waiting . . . waiting . . .

Get one guy who's all "Yeah, let's set something up." I give him my number and never hear back from him. After a few more misfires, I settle on the one guy who seems to be answering fairly quickly. He doesn't want my phone number at all. And tells me his team is in my neighborhood on Mondays and Tuesdays. Great, I tell him. They finally show up two weeks later.

*sigh*

And do a mediocre job. But it's done. Meanwhile I'm trying to find someone to fix my mower or I'll even buy the parts and fix it myself. I narrowed it down to the carburetor, and I'm more than capable of replacing the thing myself . . . if I can get the parts. And there's the rub. Because there's no model number on the mower. The model number listed in the owner's manual doesn't exist with Briggs & Stratton. And the number on the side of the mower doesn't exist either. So you're trapped. You have to give it to Sears or a Briggs & Stratton repair place to get it fixed.

F*ckers!

Meanwhile, my yard is up to my knees now. So I call the guy who mowed it the last time and said he'd keep me in his system and all I needed to do was call for another appointment.

yeah

Straight to voice mail. No return call. And no one shows up. I give him two weeks because last time . . . Finally I call again. Get the owner. They'll be out Wednesday, he tells me. No, he doesn't need my address, I'm in their system. You guessed it . . . never showed up. So I ended up renting a mower and doing it myself.

Perhaps if I'd been able to speak to these people on the phone or in person, maybe they'd have had a bit more of a professional attitude about dealing with a customer. Perhaps if my choices weren't pre-chosen for me by someone accepting money or working off some other self-serving way to rank their top companies, I would have had better luck.

I guess what I'm saying is that I think things worked better when I was able to make my own decisions about stuff like this and not let someone else do my thinking for me.

I worry for the new generations that are surrendering their decision-making processes in the name of progress.

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I'm not sure exactly who's doing this, but someone puts out these photoshoots with the tagline/imprimatur May Contain Girl. I'm going to go out on a limb and say this is not false advertising as I've seen a few of these sets, and these look like girls to me. But you can decide for yourselves:

Lindsay's posing in a swimsuit

Lindsay Lohan is in Mauritius (which I had to GOOGLE to find out where it was), either for this photoshoot or as part of her usual globe trotting that she manages seemingly without ever actually drawing a paycheck.

The shoot is fairly unspectacular, but I do have to give mad props to the photographer for actually using a decent camera and professional lighting so the pictures actually look pretty good, photo-quality wise.

Lindsay, of course, is a different matter. She's only 29. Did you know that? She looks like she's in her 40's. A very hard 40's. She's never had any body tone to speak of, but she seems to have trimmed down a bit. Let's face it, what draws eyes to her is her chest and her casual attitude about showing it off. She's still got that, but boy, she could use a few years of clean living and happiness to get herself together.

And what's with the bruises on her arms?! She always seems to be bruised up. Does she just bruise easily? I hope it's not something else. No one needs that.

How 'bout that Tony Stewart?!

Big congrats to my boy Tony Stewart for winning the 2016 Toyota/Save Mart 350 today at Sonoma Raceway.

The win breaks an 84 race winless streak for Stewart but more importantly puts him into position to be in the Chase for the Championship at the end of his final season as a driver. Technically, he needs to gain 9 more points to get above 30th place in the standings, but that shouldn't be much of a problem as after a slow beginning, Tony and his new crew chief seem to be finding their stride.

It's been a brutal couple of years since Stewart won the Sprint Cup Championship. He lost most of a season with a broken leg, then during his return had a tragedy on a dirt track where another driver lost his life and the driver's family tried to take Stewart to court over the death. And just prior to this season, Stewart crushed a vertebrae in his back in a recreational driving incident, only just returning to the track a few weeks ago.

But my boy's back in it now. I was so pumped to see him win the race today -- leading the last few laps, he was passed by Denny Hamlin on the last lap only to bull his way past Hamlin on the final turn to win the race. Like when he won his last Championship -- he won because he refused to lose and when push comes to shove, literally, Smoke's the guy I want behind the wheel.

He's an old school driver's driver, one of the reasons A.J. Foyt allowed Stewart to bring his number 14 back into NASCAR after Foyt stopped driving.

Don't know if Tony's got a shot at the title this season. Such a fairy tale might be too much to hope for. But at least I've got someone to root for the rest of the year.

Congratulations Tony!

Maitland Ward says I did it better

My favorite redhead abandoned subtlety along with her bikini top to promote some clothing/swimsuit line called Starlit on Twitter recently.

I looked at some of the suits she was posing in and it looked like someone took generic bikinis and glued sequins on them. meh

Something tells me this designer was just looking for a chance to watch my girl change clothes on the beach.

Why didn't I think of that?

Ellen Page is topless in her new movie too

Ellen Page is topless in her new movie Freeheld which is about a lesbian police officer (I think) who finds out she has cancer and fights to secure benefits for her lover/domestic partner who is played by Page.

It's a movie about our current hot topic, so I guess we get some lesbian action in the movie. And with Page as one of Hollywood's most outspoken lesbians, I guess she felt it was worth it to give it her all for the film:

I'm ambivalent about Page as an actress. She's done a lot of work and I've seen her in a lot of movies. She's a serviceable actress, nothing she's done has ever blown me away but like Kristen Stewart in the previous post -- she gets the job done on camera and that's what it's all about at the end of the day.

Her politics are another matter and I commented a while back on the hypocrisy of someone with a $5 million net worth bitching about lack of opportunity in Hollywood. She went around with a movie crew trying to ambush various Republican candidates about their supposed homophobia during the primaries and her dressing down by Harvard debate champion Ted Cruz was priceless.

I don't know. Page seems like someone who is spending so much time trying to find a fight to fight, I wonder if maybe she's missing out on what a good life she has. Maybe she should just take a step back and enjoy things for a while.

Correction:
The movie in question here is not Freeheld but Into the Forest. Apologies for my goof.

Kristen Stewart is topless in her new movie

The above crappy screencap is from a recent Kristen Stewart flick called Personal Shopper, which may be about a personal shopper for some rich person, but I could be way off line about that. I imagine it is some artsy-fartsy number since it's being made in France so there may or may not be more of that sort of casual nudity so often found in movies made overseas by our artistic superiors, I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Skin is never a guarantee of success in the movie industry of course. They might have tried that with American Ultra which got savaged by the critics (45% on Rotten Tomatoes), but who can say.

K Stew showed some brief skin in that Jack Kerouac thing On the road:

But that flick had a worse Rotten Tomatoes score than Ultra, so those folks that say nothing can save a bad movie might be right after all.

While I'm on the subject -- let me say a few words about American Ultra. I remember the brutal response of critics when this came out. It was so bad that the director was on Twitter and Facebook lashing out at those who savaged his film. The movie is out on cable now. I've seen it a couple of times and don't understand all the hub-bub.

The premise is basic -- a stoner living the blissful life with his stoner girlfriend in some woodsy town in West Virginia isn't the town f*ck up after all. Underneath the haze of pot smoke is a CIA experiment -- a young third strike offender who volunteered for a test program. One that turned him into a programmable killer, embedded with gigabytes of knowledge and killing techniques. When the program was shut down, his memory is erased, he's programmed with enough neurosis to keep him from leaving town or amounting to anything and left to live out the rest of his life in a pot-hazed peace.

Only when someone tries to kill him are his abilities re-awakened, but not entirely, and the movie is about finding out exactly who and what Mike Howell actually is.

Jesse Eisenberg does a good job as Howell. K Stew does a good job as his stoner girlfriend Phoebe, who actually was Howell's handler at the CIA but refuses to come back in after placing Howell in West Virginia. There's the typical over-the-top violence that is prevalent in these comic/drama action flicks and some political themes as the CIA is depicted as an agency of rogue psychos. And the black helicopter crowd's favorite conspiracy of an Ultra program thrown in for good measure.

I simply don't get the hate over this flick. It's on cable now, check it out and decide for yourself. Maybe I missed something. But hey, you got a little Bella Swan skin in the post . . . so there ya go.

Movie review -- The Intern

Prior to Frontier taking over Verizon as my cable provider, I found this little film on the 10 minute free preview section of the On Demand area. Sadly, most of that doesn't work now. And yet Frontier keeps charging full price for cable service while not providing full services. Go figure. Anyway . . .

The Intern stars Robert DeNiro as Ben Whittaker, a 70 year old widower who spent 40 years in marketing, advertising and production of physical phone books. Retired now, Ben spends his days doing Tai Chi in the park, going to the endless funerals of his contemporaries and dodging the bluntly amorous and unwanted advances of Linda Lavin who doesn't hesitate to remind Ben that he isn't getting any younger.

Ben sees an ad for senior interns as one of these up and coming internet companies and decides to give it a go. Most of Ben's back story is delivered via his video resume/application. It's endearing and delightful and gets Ben an interview at About the Fit, an online clothing store started by Jules Ostin, played by Anne Hathaway, a mom who realized that at the end of the day, a woman with a glass of wine and a laptop had real buying potential.

The company has skyrocketed in 18 short months from a bare bones staff of 20, to over 200 employees, a huge workplace in a redeveloped old factory in Red Hook and is experiencing all the growing pains commensurate with that quick growth. Jules herself is harried and obsessively hands-on, taking customer complaint calls personally, travelling to the warehouse to show how to properly pack shipments, etc. Her home life is suffering as her stay-at-home husband wants some "me" time, and her impossibly precocious daughter doubts her mom can do normal "mom" stuff like make guacamole.

There are several threads running through the movie -- Ben acclimating to the new age workplace with its open floor plan, people bringing their pets to work, no one actually comes over and asks for something, they just send an e-mail to whoever is sitting two feet away, and so on. Jules is under pressure from her investors to hire a CEO for the company to keep the trains running while she handles the inspiration part of the business. And Jules isn't crazy about an intern working with her, especially an older one.

Naturally their relationship grows from the awkward beginnings into a true friendship/mentor type of thing. Thankfully the writers avoided what most filmmakers would have done and gone for a May-December attraction bit. But Jules comes to trust Ben's business advice as she realizes he has no other agenda than to help the company and her, both professionally and personally. It is a refreshing relationship portrayal and one this old guy enjoys seeing on the screen.

Something else this old guy liked was the appearance of a workplace crush for Ben in the form of Rene Russo's character, Fiona. When I think of Russo, my first thought always goes to this image of her:

Russo is 62 years old now and looks fabulous. And it's nice to see both her and DeNiro playing their ages in a movie and looking awesome doing it. In this movie, Russo's character is an e-commerce masseuse and her introduction to Ben is a hilarious moment in the movie.

It's also enjoyable to watch DeNiro's wonderfully expressive face put to good use here. He conveys pages of dialogue with simply a look, something commented on by Jules at one point in the movie. And equally fun is Ben's occasional "get off my yard" shtick as he goofs on the young guys at the company for dressing like slobs and not knowing why a gentleman carries a handkerchief and so on. If he had told one of them to take a shave and do something with their f*cking hair, he would have hit my personal trifecta.

A word about Anne Hathaway here too. She does a great job in this movie. I've never understood the sh*t she takes from critics and childish internet bloggers. She is classically beautiful and takes her craft seriously. I've never seen her in anything where she didn't turn in a skillful performance, and this film is no exception. She's funny when she needs to be and emotional when that's needed and other than one moment of clumsy dialogue (and that's not her fault), she is spot on in this movie from start to finish. Frankly her critics need to shut the f*ck up about her and try to enjoy a legitimate and talented actress at work.

All in all, I highly recommend this movie if you want something simply enjoyable to watch. The Intern has made its way into my default movie list -- I'll watch it anytime it's on and not be disappointed. Give it a try.

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Here's a little gallery of Rene Russo and Anne Hathaway hotness to round things out nicely:

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Did you find this review helpful? Check out my other reviews for my thoughts on the flicks and the occasional gallery of hotness that accompanies them: