Dollar Shave Club

Today I am going to talk about something most people don't talk about.  Shaving.  My legs to be exact.  I know that most people don't like talking about that but it happens.  And this is not a paid advertisement.  I really wish I was getting paid for this.

One of the reasons I don't shave my legs that often is because of the cost of the replacement blades.  In order to get a good shave every other day I would have to replace the blades once a week.  In order to do that with my current razor, it would cost me about $16 a month because of the cost of the replacement blades.  That's $4 per blade.  Yes, it is a 5 blade razor, but still.

I decided, out of the blue, to try the Dollar Shave Club.  For $6 a month I get a 4 blade razor and I get 4 replacement blades each month.  That's a new blade every week for less than half the cost of my current blade.  And the best part?  This four blade razor actually gives me a better shave than a brand new razor with my 5 blade.  I am very glad that I tried this out and I recommend it to anyone.  While the advertising for the club is mainly geared toward men, they do have a razor that is designed for both men and women.

Dollar Shave Club.  Go for it.  You won't regret it.

The Auto ABCs

Because I'm bored.  I posted a list similar to this on livejournal a long time ago and here I am doing it again.  The Auto ABCs  There is either a car make or model for every letter of the alphabet.  Here you go.


Audi
Buick
Chevrolet
Dodge
Equinox (Chevy) 
Ford
Golf (VW)
Honda
Isuzu
Jeep
Kia
Lexus
Mitsubishi
Nissan
Optima (Kia)
Plymouth
Quest (Nissan)
Rio (Kia)
Suzuki 
Toyota
Uplander (Chevy) 
Volkswagon
Wagoneer (Jeep)
Xsara (Citreon)
Yugo
Zephyr (Lincoln)

Yes, this is exactly how bored I have been lately.  There you go.

The Car Statistics

Yeah this is the sometimes boring part of the trip.  This is how well my lovely little car, dubbed Mickey Smith, has done on this trip.  It was pretty cool.

Total miles driven was 2947.4 miles.

My car has an "average mpg" display and the lifetime average miles per gallon on my car went up from 25.1 mpg before I left town to 27.7 mpg when we got home.  LOTS of time spent on the highway, obviously.

Gas prices in LA weren't nearly as bad as I thought they would be.  It didn't get up to $5 a gallon.

Total gallons of gas purchased is 90.125 including the gas I got right before we left town.

Total spent on gas $314.67.

That gives me an average gas mileage of 33 mpg and an average cost per gallon of $3.49.

Over all the trip was pretty cool.

From Arlington to LA. The fun begins

Road tripping out to LA from Arlington because my daughter is attending a boarding school out here and with all of her crap, I just couldn't afford to fly her.  Plus, I love to drive.  I mean, I do it for a living.  A living I wish paid better but still.  Anyway.  So the trip from Arlington to LA has been pretty cool.  We took I40 across and we're going to take I20 back.  It'll be a nice change of pace.  

It took us a whole 8 hours just to get out of the state of Texas.  Now, the halfway point between Arlington and LA along I20 is Deming, NM.  That is a whole 105 miles outside El Paso.  So yeah, Texas is friggin HUGE.  As I said, we took the I40 route to get here so that's a more northern route.  We went through the mountains and there was a lot of really cool scenery.  We stopped in Gallup, NM for the night.  That hotel was okay.  It had a microwave and a fridge and a TV.  It didn't have an air conditioner but the area is relatively cool.  We did have a fan, though.  

I noticed one major difference between the states other than elevation and terrain.  That would be the "don't drink and drive" campaign.  Arizona wins the award for the most hilarious one for sure.  Both Texas and New Mexico use the "Drive sober or get pulled over" campaign.  California uses the "Driving sober saves lives, including yours" route.  Arizona, however, decided that they would go with "Drive hammered and get nailed."  That made me laugh.  It's a great campaign.  I like it.  

On the way to the hotel in LA I noticed that the people here in California drive a lot crazier than the people in Texas and that is saying something, let me tell you. People in Texas are crazy assholes and the people out here in California are about 10 times worse.  I had so many people nearly scrape the side of my car because they were extremely impatient to get around me.  One guy flashed his brights at me because I wasn't going as fast as he would have liked.  He then nearly took off my back bumper to change lanes and nearly took off my front bumper to get in front of me.  

The highlight of this time was when this motorcycle came roaring through traffic, weaving in and out of cars and going about 20 to 25 miles per hour over the speed limit.  So we're going along and a little bit later here comes CHiPs.  It was a patrol car not a motorcycle though.  He's going along and we see the lights up ahead and he's gotten pretty far ahead of us.  I'm sure he was going very fast.  A little bit later we see people slowing down and we slow down and see the CHP officer on the side of the road and who does he have pulled over?  That's right, motorcycle asshole.  My mom, daughter, and I all cheered and I would have clapped if I hadn't been driving.  Stuff like that never happens in Arlington.  At least not that I have seen.  And I have seen motorcyclists doing stupider stuff than this guy did.  

So whoever you are CHP officer that was on I605 S around 930pm PDT I want to say thank you.  And I certainly appreciate you.  

We got to the hotel and checked in and my daughter and I came to check out the room and we had been given a suite.  Four beds, two bathrooms.  A microwave, a fridge.  Two TVs.  It's pretty epic.  And the place has a pool and a jacuzzi.  I am very glad this is where we're spending two nights.  Woot.  

I'll have another post in a few days when we get back to Texas from LA.  As I said, we're taking the I20 route so it's going to be different and could be fun.  

Along the way I have collected stickers for my car.  I just need an Arizona sticker, that I couldn't find at any of the stops we made, and I will have the full set.  Woot!  

Snowpiercer (spoilers if you haven't read the graphic novel)

In order to get a screening of this movie I had to drive to Grapevine because none of the theaters in my area are showing it.  I do not regret the decision to do this at all.

This movie has Chris Evans, Ed Harris, John Hurt, Octavia Spencer, Tilda Swinton and so many other people that I don't want to disrespect by misspelling their names.  It's based on the French graphic novel Le Transperceneige by Jacques Lob.

In this movie a failed attempted to fix global warming causes a second ice age.  There's a small percentage of the population that manages to get on a train that travels the world.  It takes exactly one year to make the full circuit.  During the time on the train a class system evolves.  People at the front are the rich people in first class, people in the back are the poor people in third class or the tail section.  The whole train was designed and built by a man named Wilford.

Chris Evans plays Curtis Everett, a man that is set to start a revolution that will actually succeed this time.  All he has to do is get to the front of the train.  To the engine.  He plans to kill Wilford and take over the train and then there will be no class system anymore.

The journey from the tail to the engine is a hard one with a lot of people dying along the way, including his best friend.  He's tortured by the fact that he has to choose between capturing the person that is essentially the second in command of the trail or saving his friend and he chooses to capture her which results in his friend's death.

Essentially, the "end of the world" happens on July 1st, 2014 (yup, four days ago) when a chemical is released into the atmosphere to try to cool down temperatures caused by global warming and ends up causing a second ice age.

The movie is very good and very well done.  The cast is brilliant.  Never in my life have I been as happy that a character dies as I was when Curtis (Evans) shot Mason (Swinton) in the face.  She was that kind of character and Tilda did a beautiful job.  Ed Harris plays Wilford and you find out a lot of very interesting things when he has a conversation with Curtis.  It's almost heart breaking.

Over all I give the movie a very high score.  I definitely plan on owning it as soon as that becomes an option and if it comes to a theater near me I will go see it again.  It's slow at the beginning but it does pick up about twenty minutes in or so.  The action is great and there is a lot of violence but that kind of thing is expected from a revolution.  The movie is rated R because of it, though.

I definitely recommend going to see this movie.  Chris Evans will break your heart in more than one scene, but then he's really good at that.  I've lost track of how many times I've been in a movie and just thought "Damn you Chris Evans."  because he brings on the feels in epic proportions.  I still can't believe I used to hate that guy.  I was kind of stupid back then.

If you have a chance, go see Snowpiercer.  You will not regret it.

Chef

Written, directed and produced by Jon Favreau, Chef did not live up to my expectations.  It surpassed them.  This is a movie that follows the decline and rise again of the career of chef Carl Casper played by Jon Favreau.  Favs actually managed to get me to like Sofia Vergara which is an accomplishment in and of itself.

Everything starts to fall apart for Carl when he receives a mediocre (at best) review from food critic Ramsey Michel who is played by the wonderful Oliver Platt.  That man is and forever shall be, in my opinion, the best Porthos in the history and future of Three Muskateers movies, but I digress.

With an all star cast which included Dustin Hoffman, Scarlet Johansson, John Leguizamo, and Robert Downey Jr, I honestly believed this movie would be good before I even bought the tickets.  I was wrong.  The movie is great.  It touches your heart in ways that I never thought a movie about food could.

John Leguizamo made my life in this movie.  I love it when he plays characters like this.  I feel like you get to see a side of him that he rarely lets out.

As for Marvin, played by Robert Downey Jr.  There could not have been a more perfect part for Mr. Downey.  I thoroughly believe that it was really just Robert showing up and being himself.  Marvin is off the wall and erratic and weird and that's the impression I get of Robert when he's not playing Tony Stark.  Or should I say Tony Stark when he's trying to convince everyone that he's really Robert Downey Jr?

Like the many fine meals that were prepared therein, this movie is a masterpiece.  If you love cooking, or even if you just love food, go see this movie.  I really did enjoy every minute of it.  And I loved the integration of social media into the film.  Gave it a real world vibe that you don't see much anymore.

Thank you, Jon Favreau, for making this movie and thanks to the people that helped bring it to theaters.  I will certainly be buying it when it becomes available.

And do stay for the credits.  There's a little behind the scenes moment right before the very end that is definitely worth the wait.  

Forget the men, I just want the cars

When people find out I am a Supernatural fan, the question is always asked "Would you rather have Sam or Dean?" to which I answer "Can't I just have Baby?"  That's right, I would rather pass up on both of the Winchester boys for a chance to ride in that car.  And that made me realize that it's kind of been that way my whole life, really.  As much as I would crush on the men in the cars, it was the cars I wanted more than anything else.

This is the car that started it all.  Maxwell Smart's 1965 Sunbeam Tiger.  Not only is it in one of my all time favorite colors, but it's a convertible too.  I loved this car so very very much.  I really hated it when they changed cars later on.  This one was my absolute favorite.  

My second vehicular love affair was the 1936 Auburn belonging to Remington Steele.  Yes, Pierce Brosnan buttered by bread back in the day, but it was that car that got my motor running.  Even though I was only like 10 at the time.  Didn't matter.  I wanted that car.  

And then there was KITT.  Voiced by the man who would later become Mister Feeny on Boy Meets World, this car was awesome.  A 1980s (not sure of the specific year) Pontiac Firebird Trans Am.  With all of those wonderful features that can only be found in the wonderful land of Knight Rider.  The car made me happy and I loved seeing it more than seeing Hasslehoff every week.  

I know that I have mentioned this before in my "Celebrity Husbands" post but it bears repeating.  The Ferrari 308GTS used in Magnum P.I. was a joy to me.  It's the only Ferrari I've ever actually liked, to be honest.  And it was a beautiful car.  Driven by a beautiful man.  And once again, a nice bright red.  

I can't talk about my love affair with cars without mentioning this beauty.  The 1983 GMC G Series that transported my favorite team of military criminals turned heroes.  I loved that van just as much as B.A. did.  And I was not the only one.  My dad had a 1977 Dodge van that he tried to paint to look exactly like the A-Team van.  It didn't work out well but he did try.  It was an awesome van.  

Of course I have to show Baby.  This 1967 Impala is the highlight of the show.  When the car that carries them around is an actual character in the show, you know it rocks hard core.  I actually feel worse about bad things happening to Baby than I do when Sam and Dean get hurt.  I love that car more than both Winchesters combined.  Hell, I love that car more than I love Crowley.  That should tell you something right there.  

And last but certainly not least we have my most recent vehicular love affair.  

The 1962 Corvette Convertible lovingly known as Lola.  I don't even car about all the fancy SHIELD gadgets in this car.  I would take her as is off the factory line.  Lola is a beautiful piece of machinery and I love her as if she were my own.  Clark Gregg is a very lucky man just for getting to sit in her.  Wonderful car.  

I'm sure there are more cars that belong on this list but those are the ones that are first and foremost in my mind.  Those are the cars that have made a lasting impression on me.  The ones that I would do anything to own.  

I should mention Christine in here.  The 1958 Plymouth Fury is a gorgeous car.  I think I didn't mention it originally because I've never actually seen the movie.  I just know about the beautiful car.  

Yet another beautiful red one.  I would own this car if I could.  I would own any of them if I could, honestly.  They're all amazing cars and I love them very much.  Almost as much as I love my daughter and certainly more than I love the people that drive them.  So there you go.  I would take cars over people any day.  Even one that is a demonically possessed killer car.