Day +1 (Saturday, August 2)

(12:55PM)

Well, it’s all done folks. This morning we got up at 7AM and cleaned the house, and we were on the road by 9. It was a damn long ride home. We didn’t get back until after 3PM.

[I know I’m missing a 28 Days Later review for yesterday. I’ll write that tomorrow for all of those curious. Let’s just say for now that I thought it was awesome.]

Did I mention the car ride was long? I don’t know why, but going from NJ to NY is a lot more boring than the other way around. Probably because I’ve seen NY a million times, while NJ I only see once a year and there is more to look at outside the window. There was a lot of traffic in NY for some reason though. I’m not really sure why, but that’s what slowed us down.

Then after we unloaded the car we went to go get our puppies out of the kennel. It was amazing to just see the look of relief on their faces when they saw us for the first time. I’ve never seen those puppies so happy.

The reason why my mom was so unhappy this weekend [which I alluded to in previous posts]:

I mentioned before about how my mom didn’t like how my aunt Tiger had to do all of her meals with us. Anyway, after that day my mom was like “NO MORE BREAKFASTS” at our place, which they kept to for everyday except for Friday (for some reason unknown to us all). They still were there for dinner every night, which really pissed my mom off for several reasons.

One, my mom wanted to have some time with just our family. It’s more relaxed, and she’s not then cooking for 10 people every night. She doesn’t mind eating with my aunt’s family, just not every night.

Also, they are a tad bit slow at EVERYTHING. This annoys everyone, even my aunt Snoup, Matthew, and all of my family (including myself). It takes them like forty minutes to get ready for the beach. Everything is a big surprise to them, and you have to kind of walk baby steps with them if you want to get anything done.

Then there is the fact that they say they don’t want to eat seafood and then come over and eat all of ours. This really pissed my mom off. She didn’t mind making it for them, but if she doesn’t have the right amount of food, that just means less food for those who really wanted it (and said so).

They also eat all of our food and then don’t offer any money in compensation, or offer to make dinner once at our place. My mom said she didn’t know if she would take money from them, but it would be nice if they offered since we didn’t really expect to be buying them dinner every night.

They don’t help making the food, nor do they really help with the clean up.

Why do they have to eat at our place all of the time? Because we have the better porch. Not that their porch is bad or anything, mind you, just that ours overlooks the pond and theirs doesn’t. OK.

They also eat before they come over to our place, and then pick away at our meals. Who does that? Why don’t you just eat dinner at your place and then, perhaps, come over to ours for desert?

And, on top of all of that, it doesn’t seem like Tim was enjoying himself much at Cape May. I mentioned the incident where we biked to Cape May and he almost killed me because he was going so fast. He just makes everyone tense, like he’s all wound up and not relaxing like he should. His “beach reading” was a book on biochemistry (which relates to his job). Why couldn’t he read a trashy novel for pleasure like everyone else? He’s got to learn to keep the work at work. If he doesn’t cool down soon he’s going to flip his lid.

Ok, enough of that. To end the Cape May Journal, I will give you a short review of Gods and Generals, which I just saw on tape because of my sudden interest in the Civil War because of the book Confederates in the Attic.

——Gods and Generals——

–Reasons why this movie sucked:

The North…
–One soldier can’t understand why Lincoln freed the “darkies” (not in the book)
–In one scene the Union army is seen looting a city
–The Union Army doesn’t win a battle (which is partially because this movie takes place before Gettysburg)
–In one battle, the speech beforehand is of how Caesar marched on Rome (hmmm…this isn’t in the book)

The South…
–Not a single black in the movie is treated like a slave, but instead like an equal free person (not in the book)
–Not only that, but Stonewall Jackson befriends a black man, makes him his cook for the Rebel army, talks to him about how the South plans on freeing the slaves almost immediately after the South wins its own independence, and throughout the movie the black man is periodically seen at his side for major events, including standing over him after he gets shot, and over his death bed when he dies (!) (Way, way, way totally NOT in the book)
–In one battle, the speech beforehand is of how the Jews in the Old Testament beat their adversaries (another interesting hmmm…)
–Stonewall Jackson’s best friends are his wife (for probably the only actual male/female affection in the movie), the previously mentioned black cook, and a small little girl he meets after a major battle. (Not in the book, I don’t think) He plays with the little girl for a good half hour before she dies of Scarlet fever, to which he weeps like a baby.

The South frequently explains that the Civil War has nothing to do with slavery and everything to do with States rights (which is almost true, but not quite. I really doubt the South actually considered getting rid of all of their slaves, just because). It’s not hard to see whom Ted Turner’s sympathies fall with. The North gets almost no screen time, unless it is to talk about how much they suck, or to talk about how the Irish are fighting the war for them. Uh, hello, the North won. This movie is so tactless with its political correctness that it isn’t even funny.

What is funny is the really bad acting.

The movie feels a lot like a TV mini-series and nothing like a film. I even thought it might actually be pretty good if they re-edited it and added a narrator to make it into a PBS documentary type thing. The editing in this movie is laughable though. The movie is four hours long, which is way, WAY too long. Why? Not because too much happens, but because every time someone is on screen they don’t talk, they make speeches. Everyone gives multiple several minute long speeches. It’s maddening. It’s like they took direct passages straight from the book and put them to screen without editing them at all. The special effects are also pretty crap-tacular. Where the money went, I’ll never know. Probably to Robert Duvall for his portrayal of the almost non-existent Robert E. Lee.

To put it simply, this movie blows. However, if you have a lot of friends who like history AND like to make fun of bad movies, gather them together for a fun rental. I gave this movie a C-.