wedding

The Wedding Ringer Movie Review

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I watched The Wedding Ringer with my wife (she’s my consistent movie watching partner) and it is the first movie I will be giving a negative review of on my blog!

The premise of the movie is pretty simple. Doug Harris played by Josh Gad is getting married to Gretchen Palmer played by Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting from The Big Bang Theory. Unfortunately, Doug has no friends to be in his wedding party.

Doug calls on Jimmy Callahan played by Kevin Hart to provide “Best Man services.” Jimmy pretends to be Doug’s best friend, Bic Mitchum, and hires seven people to act as Doug’s other groomsmen.

Typical comedy farce ensues as the groomsmen struggle to memorize their fake identities and lie their way through the events surrounding the wedding.

There are some occasional good scenes like there are in any comedy. When Jimmy learns his new pseudonym, Bic Mitchum, he plays around with it a bit, “I’m Bic Mitchum! What’s it to you?”

Sadly, most of the movie is crude humor instead of farce or slapstick. Most of the “jokes” are simply people swearing in stressful situations.

There are also two scenes that effectively ruined the movie for my wife and me.

The first was a football game between the groomsmen and the fiancee’s father and his friends. The game devolves into violence and name-calling. I guess it’s supposed to be funny because the father and his friends are old? It just seemed like an argument between two groups of jerks.

The second scene involved penis humor. I didn’t like it in The Hangover. No one liked it in The Hangover. Why are you bringing it back Hollywood? There was also a dog and some peanut butter involved but I don’t want to get into the specifics in case I ruin the joke for people going to the movie.

The rest of the movie was fine for a comedy, but not amazing. Kevin Hart and Josh Gad do a good job, but I know Kevin Hart can do better.

My favorite part was probably Affion Crocket playing a wisecracking airport customs officer just like he did in Baggage Claim. It’s about as specific a typecast as you could get!

-Mister Ed

Weekend Trip to Disneyland

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Jack Skellington comes out for Halloween and Christmas
Jack Skellington comes out for Halloween and Christmas

Last weekend my wife and I took an unplanned trip to Disneyland!

We were talking on Friday night about how some people take vacations by going to the airport and just asking for a ticket to the next plane leaving the runway.

I said that doing that was unreliable. “What if you ended up in a boring place? Or a place that you couldn’t afford? It makes more sense to go to some place that you know you’ll like for a vacation, like Disneyland.”

My wife and I went to Disneyland for our honeymoon, so going again will always bring back happy memories for us.

She said she was actually interested in going. Disneyland is fun so I wanted to go to. We decided we’d leave early Saturday morning and spend all day at the park before getting a hotel room and returning Sunday morning.

We looked at plane tickets first, but those cost about $800 for both of us to fly from Sacramento to Anaheim.

We drove instead. A little over 400 miles and 6 hours not counting breaks and traffic.

This was the first long road trip i’d bern on where I was the person driving. It was exhausting, but definitely worth it!

We went through a lot of farm land and dairy land. My wife is a vegetarian and when we passed the occasional stockyard she would clasp her hands together and say, “I love you moo-cows! Someone cares about you! I hope you are safe!”

We checked in to our hotel and headed on over to Disneyland for lunch. It was great being back where we’d had our honeymoon.

After lunch we rode all our favorite rides, Pirates, Space Mountain, Indiana Jones, Peter Pan, Splash Mountain, and Haunted Mansion (seen above). Dinner fit in there somewhere as well.

At the end of the day we saw the firework display and got to watch the Fantasmic water and light show. I LOVE Fantasmic because of the animatronic dragon near the end. It rears up out of the stage and breaths fire on the river. It’s amazing! I’d love to show you, but the show is difficult to capture on video because most cameras aren’t able to handle the sudden changes in light that the show has. Your eyes can handle it, but mechanical cameras are too slow.

Afterwards we went back to the hotel and collapsed. We drove on back the next day!

It was a super fun trip and my first unplanned vacation ever. Plus I had my best friend with me, my wife!

-Mister Ed

My Cousins’s Wedding

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Still got a little bit of snow in October.
Still got a little bit of snow in October.

Last weekend I flew to Portland, Oregon with my wife to attend my cousin’s wedding.

The flight there was a little unusual. I liked it, but my wife did not.

We flew on Alaska Airlines which apparently uses smaller planes.

Particularly they use propeller planes that you have to board from the tarmac instead of from the Jetway.

I thought this was pretty cool. I’ve always liked boarding from the tarmac and I’ve never been on a propeller airplane before.

My wife did not enjoy the novelty so much and instead focused on fear of the unknown.

There were some negatives. The plane didn’t have enough room for our carry-ons so we had to check them at the gate which I am always suspicious of. The plane smelled when we got on. The propeller engines were really loud compared to jet engines. The ceiling was lower than other planes I’ve been. You get the idea.

Good news though! The plane was smaller, so it flew lower. That’s how we got that pretty cool picture of Mount Shasta up there.

As for the wedding and seeing all of my cousins? Loads of fun!

I haven’t seen my youngest cousins in awhile so it was nice to see all of them and dance with them at the reception.

I liked catching up with all my older relatives as well. And now my wife has met nearly everyone in my family. There’s still a few holdouts, but we’ll get there!

Plus my cousin got married! Her husband is super cool and I’m glad he’s going to be part of our large family. Beautiful, short ceremony followed by a good dinner and an awesome live band for dancing!

My uncle lives in Portland and operates a pottery studio there. I liked going in to see where and how he makes all his stuff. If you’d like some amazing custom pottery you can check him out at Piatt Pottery.

We also did a little bit of Portland sight seeing. Specifically the Lloyd Center mall (The mall is cool! Don’t knock it!), a Mexican sports bar called Aztec Willie’s, and one of the Salt and Straw ice cream places.

I recommend all three places. The mall was well designed with a lot of natural lighting from a large central skylight. The sports bar had good service, good food, and what looked like a dance floor they were setting up when we had to leave to go meet relatives.

Salt and Straw was probably the most interesting of the places we went to. It has all sorts of weird custom-made ice cream flavors. Their recent batch of ice cream is all Halloween themed. My wife and I both got the Chocolate Graveyard flavor which is chocolate with Oreo “dirt” mixed in along with candy skeleton “bones.”

And there was a gift shop next door to Salt and Straw where I got this guy!

Time for Video Games!
Time for Video Games!

BMO is a character from one of my favorite cartoon shows, Adventure Time. BMO will be joining me for a video game stream in the future because that’s what BMO does. Play video games!

I’m sure there’s a lot more to do in Portland that I missed out on. It’s an amazing beautiful city. And a big thank you to my grandparents for funding all of us in getting to and staying in Portland!

-Mister Ed

Will and Testament

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My wife and I met with a lawyer this morning to draft a last will and testament.

Most people our age don’t have wills. Nobody plans on dying, but that’s even truer for people in their early 20’s.

Most people my age don’t have a lot of assets to dispense upon their deaths either.

I do because I inherited some money from my mother when she died a few years ago. From a certain point of view its a second will for her.

Our idea for the will is pretty simple. If one of us dies, that person’s property goes to the other marriage partner.

If we both die, our estate is split between our parents.

If our parents are dead it’s split between our siblings.

I’d be shocked if the followup to that happened, but if both of us, all of our parents, and all of our siblings were dead then our estate would be split between our aunts and uncles.

We hadn’t planned that last one out, but the attorney we spoke with said it was the default law. We figured we’d go with that.

We’d previously talked about donating to charity if our siblings couldn’t receive the money. We still might go back to that as well.

For now, the attorney gave us a questionnaire to draft a health care directive.

A health care directive is a piece of paper with instructions for your medical care if you’re unconscious or otherwise unable to describe your own wishes for your medical care.

So stuff like, “Would you want to be on life support if you are in a coma?”

Or, “Would you want if you were in a permanent vegetative state?”

“Would you like to be cremated, buried, or something else?” (Taxidermied is not one of the listed options)

“Would you like to donate your organs?” (You should)

“If you are donating organs, which ones are okay to donate? All of them or just a few of them?”

So we’ve got to go over all of that stuff and then get back to the attorney at a different time.

It feels like a nice adult thing to do with my wife, but its also depressing.

Part of it is exciting to be planning something so important with her.

I’m not bummed out so much about my own death or her death when we talk about the will. Those both still feel far enough away that I can act like I’m immortal.

It just gets me thinking about my mother’s and my sister’s deaths a lot. My wife feels the same way about it too.

-Mister Ed

Wedding Vows

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Wedding Kiss!

I got married one year ago to my favorite person, my wife!

Here are the vows we said one year ago and repeated today. ❤

Me: I promise to dance with you all the time

Her: I promise to always try to make you smile

Me: I promise to let you have a cat

Her: I promise to love you when you sneeze and I promise to let you have a dog

Me: I promise to walk the dog

Her: I promise to love walking with you

Me: I promise to help with the dishes

Her: I promise to cook you delicious meals and when I’m lucky, cook with you

Me: I will do the laundry and the vacuuming

Her: I will do the chores you are too sleepy to finish

Me: I will hold you when you have nightmares

Her: I will try not to keep you up every night with my excessive talking

Me: I promise to go to Ujam with you sometimes

Her: I promise to let you play video games, in moderation

Me: I promise to kiss you before I go to work and when I get home

Her: I promise to show you that I love you each and every day

Me: I promise to put away my toys when I am done playing

Her: I promise to be a kid at heart when I am with you

Me: I will take the kids to school and change diapers

Her: I will enjoy being a parent with you when the time comes

Me: I will wear the clothes you pick

Her: I will try not to be too opinionated

Me: I will drive us to fun places

Her: No matter where we go, it will be fun if it’s with you

Me: And there’s only one thing you need to know

Together: I love you!

-Mister and Missus Ed

 

Watching Bachelorette with my Wife

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My wife and I watch Bachelorette sometimes. No roses for kitties on the show though!
My wife and I watch Bachelorette sometimes. No roses for kitties on the show though!

My wife likes to watch the ABC show, The Bachelor, and I like my wife so I watch with her.

The Bachelor is a reality show where one man is courted by 25 women at once.

The first episode introduces the Bachelor and the eligible women. Subsequent episodes cover the dates the Bachelor goes on with one woman at a time or many.

At the end of the dates one woman on the date gets a rose, signaling that the date was successful.

At the end of the episode the Bachelor hands out additional roses, only there aren’t enough for all the women.

Like a game of musical chairs, some are left without roses and eliminated.

Eventually only a few women are left and the dates get more serious (meeting families and scandalous overnight dates).

When there are only two women left the Bachelor must choose one.

The show encourages a proposal at that point, but it doesn’t always happen. Sometimes the relationship doesn’t even continue at all from that point.

The show’s purpose is to create marriages, after all 1 out of 25 women should be marriage material, right?

The show’s track record is pretty bad though. 1 in 10 of the seasons ends in a successful marriage.

Originally there was only The Bachelor, but now there is The Bachelorette. It’s the same show with a woman as the central character and 25 men vying for her attention instead.

My wife likes it a lot. I feel like its forced drama by people who aren’t actors.

The creators and the people on the show have admitted that the conflicts on the show are largely fabricated.

Two people might be fighting, but they were told to fight by the producers.

Two people might seem to be insulting each other, but the show edits out the laughing afterwards at the ridiculous insult. Instead a frown is edited in from a different conversation.

Regardless of all that stuff it is still fun to hear about the drama and who gets eliminated.

I’ll continue watching the first few minutes with my wife every week and then getting bored and wandering away. She’ll fill me in on the rest afterwards.

And unfortunately, all my favorite characters keep getting eliminated.

-Mister Ed

Teaching Graduation

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My father-in-law's picture of the banner behind the graduation stage.
My father-in-law’s picture of the banner behind the graduation stage.

I wanted to write about two things today, but I’ve only got space for one.

My wife had her graduation ceremony for getting her California teaching credential yesterday.

But today the World Cup started!

I decided I’d write about my wife because I am married to her not to soccer.

My wife’s teaching program has several different groups within it.

There are the doctoral students with their PhDs and EdDs.

There are a few people who got their credentials already and are coming back to school to get a Master’s.

Most of the people are getting a Master’s and a teaching credential within the same program.

The program takes two years to complete. The first year ends with a teaching credential, the second ends with a Master’s of Arts in education.

The teaching credential allows you to teach children in California. The MA gives you a pay raise.

The program thus has two groups, one getting their credentials at the graduation ceremony and one getting their MAs.

Those two groups are split once again based on whether they are studying to teach multiple subjects in elementary school or single subjects in middle school or high school.

My wife got her credential in multiple subjects and will be teaching children on her own next year at a elementary school a few blocks from our apartment.

She said that despite the graduation ceremony she doesn’t feel “graduated” yet because she still has another year of school left to get her Master’s (Saturday school as she will now be teaching fulltime).

Her family came into town for the ceremony. We sat through the speeches and clapped when she went up on stage to have her honor cord placed on her shoulders.

Afterwards we went out to eat at a great Mexican restaurant and had to wait super long because everyone else had the same idea.

My grandma-in-law got to meet our new cat and see our apartment too!

It was a pretty cool day, but its sad to say goodbye to that part of your life as well.

World Cup news coming soon!

-Mister Ed