My Personal Pre-Brosnan Bond Toplists

Since my own personal Bond-Experience began with "Goldeneye" (I had seen older Bonds before, but without knowing about the Bond franchise), and also because in the last months my wife and I sat through all the 16 (17 with "Never Say Never Again") Bonds up to 1989's "License to Kill", it is time now for a toplist. Here it comes:

Top 3 of all Bond movies before Pierce Brosnan:
1. The Living Daylights
2. Diamonds Are Forever
3. Goldfinger
Honorable mention: You Only Live Twice, Never Say Never Again.

The worst 5 Bond movies before Pierce Brosnan:
1. Live And Let Die
2. The other 6 Roger Moore Bonds except "A View To a Kill" and "Octopussy"
3. Octopussy
4. A View To A Kill
5. Thunderball
Honorable mention: License to Kill, On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

Reasons:
Roger Moore should be remembered as a) "Bathrobe Bond", because we see him wearing one in every single Bond movie he's in, b) "Dumb Boy Bond", because he never ever seems to know what he's doing, and c) "Lucky Fuck Bond", because every single woman wants to have sex with him for no apparent reason. And please, never ever torture us with that Sheriff again (nor with 5 boat chases in 4 sequential movies)!
Sean Connery's Bond's only flaw is that he gets whacked over the head too often. Apart from that some of his Bond movies suffer from bad writing and bad directing, "Thunderball" is especially boring. The Remake "Never Say Never Again" however, is surprisingly good (probably thanks to Irvin Kershner). "Diamonds Are Forever" is the best here because of its entertaining ideas, like the fake moon landing site, the awesome one-person-hug or the two gay killers. Besides, they had all these great sophisticated enemy lairs back then, especially the one in "You Only Live Twice".
The first Timothy Dalton Bond after Roger-Moore-Forever brings the franchise back to life, it's quick, funny, has lot's of great action, but most importantly: Bond is a secret agent again. He know's what he's doing! And he does his job first, then fucks the woman. Unfortunately they didn't manage to make that work for "License to Kill", which is just pure eighties boring.
I don't even want to start on "Her Majesty's Secret Service". It has it's moments, but it just "wouldn't have happened to the other guy".
Once we've finished rewatching the Brosnans and Craigs, I will make new lists. So long.

The Fog / Quarantine

There was fog on friday. Or was it saturday morning? I don't remember, but that fog took our internet connection away. We were offline the whole weekend, it only came back like 3 hours ago. Connection, it's good to have you back.
We did some movie watching: Quarantine. I'm not usually into zombie movies, and I'm not usually into shaky handycam movies. This one happens to be both, and even though it has Jennifer Carpenter in it, who is kind of hot, Quarantine sucks, as my wife would phrase it, the big hard one. Quarantine sucks, sucks, sucks! The zombies come in too late, then nobody recognizes them as zombies ("Uh, I'm just a vet, but these are all... rabies symptoms"), the camera guy most of the time has to hold the camera instead of helping the others, the whole movie is predictable, apparently none of the characters has ever seen a zombie movie, so all the time they act completely like "Yeah, let's endanger my life!", since the movie plays the whole rabies-thing (and the infected people turn green and drool) no-one of the characters seems to be concerned about getting infected, they keep touching the green ones, also whoever wrote the script obviously had no idea about basic medical procedures, and, the final and best reason why this movie sucks ass: Jennifer does a whole fuckload of screaming and whining. Thank you, that's 1:28 of my lifetime I will never get back. Cloverfield at least has made me sea-sick.

Celebration

This my 84th blog post, according to the number in the archive, and tomorrow will be the three-month-anniversary, or shouldn't it be called the third menstriversary (?) of this blog. Three months ago minus one day I started this thing. Well, I think that is worth this blog post, oh yes, it is.
Why mention it early, you may ask, the big day is tomorrow, not today. Right you are, but you know what? I don't care. Today's wednesday, and I feel like writing about the short-one-day-third-lunaversary of this.
I guess it's time give my blog an appreciatory look-up-and-down, not without the inevitable click of tongue, smack of lips and expert's eye of course:
Yes, I say, très formidable!

Okay, that's that. Good. I'm out of here.

Little Memo & Movies

To prevent my videos from getting lost in the dark and evil worlds of archive, I've added links to them in a seperate field on the right, just below the music player. This way they are easily accessible for re-watching ;D.
Another thing: I've watched the movie "State of Play" the other day, and I liked it. It's a good movie, even though it has Ben Affleck in it. No really. Russell Crowe is great in this one, if you don't mind his hair, that is. So if you like the whole journalism/media-sensation/government/conspiracy genre, watch "State of Play". Very solid movie.
Oh, since I'm talking movies. A while ago or so I tried to watch "Fast & Furious". It sucks. Don't bother with it. It just sucks. Crappy CGI-Stunts, and Vin Diesel just isn't as cool as he was in "The Fast & The Furious". Oh, Hollywood, please learn: Never take the definitive articles away from something, never take those articles!
Movie #3: I re-watched "Tremors". What a fun movie. Always a pleasure. Can you fly, motherfucker???

Monday, Monday

The new week has started. This monday can look back already to an early morning run, making and eating breakfast, a walk to the post office (sending out two letters), a chat with the pharmacy guy (and hitching a ride back to town), buying groceries at the store, the cleaning of the whole appartment, doing the laundry, changing the sheets, winning a chess game, cooking and eating midday meal, reading the news and listening to The Stone Roses (not necessarily in that order).
And now I will play video games and more chess.

Bread

We were running out of bread today, so I decided to bake some. It turned out well and tastes awesome. The bread is 50 percent whole wheat, that's why we can safely believe in its healthyness, even if we eat fuckloads of Nutella with it.

Apart from that it was a pretty lazy day. I might go fishing again tomorrow.

New Post

This is a new post. I feel I have to post something. Is that wrong? Does my blog start to control my life? Is it taking over? Going back to text only seems a bit strange after posting so many songs and videos. Well, however, first things first:
It didn't rain today. Not at all. Still, I didn't go out. I stayed inside and made pizza. Two pizzas. Also I am happy to look at my statistics of our money-spending over the last ten weeks. I've written down every single cent I've spent for groceries and everyday household stuff, and the weekly average looks very good. Even great.
Two days ago I made a new dish, because at the store I had bought curry. That enabled me to make curry-dishes, which I did: Curry-chicken with rice. It may sound weird, but I found it exciting to stray away from the meals I usually make.
Also I find myself spending a lot of time dreaming about my new computer, I'm also spending way too much time looking forward to a new computer-game coming out in october. The game's called Risen. Well, the number of really good games is very small, and Risen has great potential.
Finding a job also takes longer than I thought. Seems like I underestimated the processing time my potential employers need to consider it or to check for open positions or to screen my background or whatever. I'm a bit tired of fishing, too. Sitting around, waiting for fish to bite, it's windy, there are bugs...
Wait a minute... Am I bored? I might be bored! Heureka!
Guess I have to find something to do.
I kind of wanna construct and build a table for myself, out of two-by-fours. I'm thinking 40 inches by 25 or 30, and 30-35 high. But I can't build it, because a) I don't have tools and b) I don't have two-by-fours and c) the next hardware store is a three hour drive away and d) I don't have a car.
Well, then I'll just keep hacking away at my keyboard and produce blog-posts for now. Like this one. Which ends here. Good night.

Today's Numbers

Times I went running: 1
Number of kilometers run: maybe 5
Times I went fishing: 1
Number of fish caught: zero
Number of pickerel rigs lost: 1
Times I hitched a ride today: 2
Number of places I was taken before I got where I wanted to go: 2
Times I went to the store: 2
Number of stuff bought: 10-30
Times I went to explore another employment opportunity: 1
Number of successes in that: can't say, filling out a stack of forms doesn't count.
Other activities:
Number of chess moves made: 18
Number of meals cooked: 1
Number of copies made: 1
Number of sophisticated blog posts written: zero
I guess that's it.

Last Video: I Wonder if it Rains at Home

This is the last video for now, I don't think I'll make any more soon. I am little videoed-out perhaps. I'd like to send some greetings across the ocean with this one. And across the continent, too. ;)

Music Video: "Hair"

Yup, another video. This one was a pain in the ass to make. It took forever. I'd like to blame that on the actors, they were kind of hard to work with. Okay, I didn't pay much (nothing, in fact), but in return for allowing them to star in my video I would have expected a little more enthusiasm. Or agility. You'll see what I mean.



However, I think it turned out okay. Thanks for liking the other videos.

Hospital Music Video

Well, I've made another video. This time for the song "Hospital".

Tales of a Fish 2009 Video

I've made a little video for the Tales of a Fish 2009 song.



I used a lot of material from the web to do this, and it's possible that I have missed a copyright here or there. Please contact me at brato dot useba at gmail dot com if you see anything you own and don't want in my video and I will remove it.

I Need A Haircut

Quickly.

Sunday Fishing Trip

It's very hot here these days. Summer, summer, summer. What better could you do than go fishing on the lake? Luckily today a very friendly guy took me out fishing by boat. First we went cruising the confusing maze of lakes, canals and rivers, which was cool, then we stopped at a portage (Well, some kind of wooden stairway for boats. People take their boats out of the water and carry them a bit to avoid rapids.)

I caught a bass there. But I threw it back in (my last filleting-experience is yet too vivid a memory to just take the next best fish home and do it again). Later I drove the boat. It is very windy on a lake. Very windy. But we didn't feel it, because the sun was shining like crazy. Fortunately my wife had made me wear sunscreen. Later I got invited to a family barbecue. Lot's of awesome food. Very friendly people. Then more fishing: We stayed out until sundown and caught a number of pickerels, but only rather small ones, so we threw them back in. Here's me, holding my rod at sunset ;).

Poetry Today #3

Here's another episode of Poetry Today with Brato.
Episode 3: "Secret Agent Frog"

Sick TV Show (& Rhubarb Coffee Cake)

Right now I'm watching the sickest TV-Show ever about an even more sick event: Toddlers & Tiaras on TLC. A show about crazy mothers who obviously have serious issues and are trying to define themselves through their children by signing them up for beauty-pageants. That means new two week old babies in tuxedos being shown off on stage and 4 year old girls with hair pieces and make up wearing Las Vegas showgirl dresses dancing about and mimicking seductive movements shown to them by their mothers. And here's 3 year old Billy Bob from Bumfuck, Nowhere. He has brown hair and brown eyes and his life ambition is to grow up! It's the craziest thing I've ever seen, and the fact that I am watching it for the mere sickness of it is freaking me out even more. Nice play, TLC. Stop the show! Someone should go and have child protective services arrest the organizers of the beauty pageant and also the parents. What happened to children playing in the fuckin' mud? Or just PLAYING? Instead of setting their kids up for needing shrinks in later life those mothers should get mental therapy for themselves asap. Or a decent fuck from their husbands.

And now for something completely different: I've made the rhubarb coffee cake again, and again it tastes awesome. Here's a picture. It's still amazing to me that one can actually bake cakes kind of similar to the overexpensive ones from places like Starbucks at home... But now I'm out of rhubarb. Maybe I'll go and harvest that roadside-rhubarb I've seen.

Poetry Today #2

Welcome to a new episode of Poetry Today with Brato.
Episode 2: "Maggots"

Back to Blogging-Business-As-Usual

Well, sort of.
It doesn't look like there are gonna be more music posts in the very near future, I'm a little "out-musiced" right now. The existing songs can be considered united on one album, the (kind of longish) title is: "Rumpo Auriga & His Brother Frango present Brato Useba's Lost in Duct-Tape Country or Exile Automator". I might make a cover for that soon.
However, there are gonna be more episodes of Poetry Today with Brato.

Apart from that I need new fishing weights, the stores here are well understocked and I'm tired of using whatever I can find. Also it seems like I have to go running tomorrow morning, like before breakfast. Argh. I promised. Argh.
What else is new: I am now officially allowed to work. So I will look for a job.

Oh, before I forget: The other day I made the most awesome rhubarb-coffee-cake. The recipe was given to me 2 months ago by a very friendly woman, she also gave me the necessary rhubarb (which I stored in the freezer). ( I've also found wild rhubarb next to the road, but I chose not to harvest it.) Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of the cake, but it looked and tasted awesome. I myself only had one piece, because we took it to a potluck. People ate it as if they were seven-headed-caterpillars. (However, I must mention that people here have crazy ideas about dessers, they are a little dessert-crazy, before all stuff's gotta be sweet and sugar-coated and whatnot. Creamy, too. Very weird. What I mean is: They probably go for everything labelled dessert anyway, and then come back for more if it is actually good.)
I'm gonna make a new cake soon, and then I will post a picture of it.

Poetry Today #1

Welcome to a new show: Poetry Today with Brato.
Episode 01: "Herbert"

4 More Songs

Well, there's strangeness in them. Kindly listen favorably.

...
13. Breakfastsong
14. I Hate Rain
15. Vertigo Calling
16. Android
...

There might be still more songs to come.
Feel free to comment or email (brato dot useba at gmail dot com).