Le Grill? What The Hell Is THAT?

Lately I’ve found myself adding movies to my Netflix queue that, upon their arrival, make me say, “Why the hell did I pick this piece of crap?”The latest example, which I watched on Friday night, was Good Luck Chuck.
Of course, I do know why I picked that piece of crap:

1. Jessica Alba is hot.
2. The central premise was built around the concept of someone having a “super power” that is very similar to one I possess.
3. Jessica Alba is hot.

I’ll get into point 2 in just a bit, but before that I’ll say that the movie was absolute formulaic dreck that ticked off all the boxes on the “Zany Romantic Comedy Checklist.”
Fat, sassy black lady? Check.
Fat, obnoxious, crude, sex-obsessed best friend? Check.
Amazingly hot female love interest who is almost inhumanly kind, sweet, and nurturing, and who has some kind of endearing quirkiness? Check.
Romantic misunderstanding in which the male lead does exactly the opposite of what he should do, thereby driving the female love interest away? Check.
Big dramatic last-ditch effort to win female love interest back, preferably at an airport? Check.
And of course, somewhere in there the male lead learns some valuable lesson about himself, life, and love, and the fat-ass “comically” douchebaggy best friend manages to find true love of his own.
So yeah, it was crap.
Anyway, the central premise of the movie, for those who don’t know, is that the lead, Charlie/Chuck, was hexed in his youth by a spurned goth girl, making it impossible to find love himself, even as love “falls like rain” all around him.
More specifically, if he sleeps with a woman, she will then almost immediately meet someone else who turns out to be the love of her life. Thus women line up to have their turn with him and then head off to buy a wedding dress in anticipation of meeting their darling dearests.
Years before the movie came out, I wrote a Threshold entry in which I explained that I have a similar ability, though in my case, naturally, it doesn’t require that I actually sleep with a woman in order for her to reap the benefits.
All I have to do is simply become romantically interested, even in the slightest degree, in a woman, and within a year she’ll at the very least be engaged, or, as has happened more often, be married and have a baby.
In every case in which I’m privy to the details of what happened in the lives of the women in whom I’ve been interested, this has proven to be the way things turn out.
(In one instance, the power of my interest was sufficient to get someone who had steadfastly maintained for most of her life that she would never get married to change her thinking on the subject.)
Anyway, the fact that there was a movie built around someone who has a better version of my power (i.e. his power allows him to get laid), was sufficient, when coupled with Alba’s hotness, to make me want to check it out, and it’s not like I didn’t know it was going to be awful going into it.
On Friday Scott came over, by my invitation, so that I could make use of his van to go out and buy some things that wouldn’t fit in my car.
Namely a gas grill and a lawnmower.
Once he arrived we headed off to Home Depot, where I found the aforementioned items, in addition to a weed whacker and a hedge trimmer, and the two of us headed to a register where I prepared to drop a substantial chunk of change.
Before I could do so, however, the cashier asked if I had a Home Depot card. I confessed that I didn’t, and she asked, “Do you want one?”
She then proceeded to talk about the advantages of having one, most notably the fact that I would have no interest and no payments for a year on the day’s purchase if I were to sign up for a card.
So I did.
From there, we went to a grocery store to pick up some brats to cook on the grill after putting it together, and then to Super Target, where I picked up season 3 of Battlestar Galactica for us to watch after the day’s work was done.
Of course, by the time we got the grill assembled and the food cooked, we only had time to watch two episodes before he had to leave.
In any case, I greatly appreciate all of Scott’s help, as even if I’d been able to get the grill home by myself, I certainly wouldn’t have been able to put it together alone. If I had attempted to do so, there’s no doubt it would have turned out almost exactly like Homer’s attempt at putting together a grill on The Simpsons.
(Which provides the title of this entry; after dropping all of the parts in wet cement, Homer grabs the instructions and finds that the English side is unreadable and attempts to follow the French instructions.)
And of course the plan for today was to put my newly-acquired lawn equipment to use, but naturally it’s raining today and is supposed to continue to do so through Wednesday.
After Scott left, I continued watching BSG, and was about to go to bed at around 1 AM after watching one last episode, but at the end of the episode it said, “To be Continued,” which led me to say, as they do on BSG, “Frack!” as it meant staying up for yet another episode.
Today I went out to Wal-Mart to pick up a few things, came home, had lunch, watched an episode of BSG, then decided to try to take a nap, changed my mind, and sat down to write this.
Sometime last week I developed a cold.
It’s always irritating to be sick, but there are a couple of things that serve to enhance my misery. For one thing, the fact that I’ve managed to catch a cold – and a pretty nasty one at that – means that my immune system is no longer as seemingly bulletproof as it’s been for the past 8 years or so. For another, it means I can’t wear my gentle molding lenses, so my vision has been fading more and more each day.
In any case, we’re now up to date, so I think I’m going to go sit on the couch and watch some more BSG and feel miserable. It’s a perfect day for it.
(Pictures of the grill and etc. will be posted someday when it’s a little less gloomy out.)