Three Reviews

(OK, I'm already slacking. My second post was started 4 days ago and I'm just finishing it and sharing it today, January 29th.)

This past Thursday was a rare occasion for us - we watched a movie, on a weekday night, because, somehow, the kids were in bed and asleep(!) earlier than usual. The movie was one of my choices - "Someone Like You . . ." starring Hugh Jackman and Ashley Judd. I had recently finished reading Piece of Work by Laura Zigman and noticed on the inside, back cover that one of her other books, Animal Husbandry, had been made into a movie (in 2001, I'm a little out of touch). Small tangent - I've read all four of her books and would rate them in the following order: 1. Dating Big Bird, 2. Animal Husbandry, 3. Piece of Work, and 4. Her - which interestingly, is almost the order I read them in, just switch the last two. The movie was cute but it lacked that spark necessary for a really good romantic comedy. I'm still not sure if it was the script or the casting, maybe a little of both. I like Ashley Judd and Hugh Jackman but I think they lacked chemistry together.

Friday, I had my yearly review with my manager - he's not a project manager on my current project, so he's not familiar with what I do on a day to day basis, he's more of a personnel manager for me. I was actually pretty nervous going into it since last year's review went so terribly wrong. Long story short, I ended up yelling at my manager (yes, I actually raised my voice, and I can say that is the one and only time I've yelled at someone at work) and I slammed the conference room door on him (and right in the face of the next employee waiting for their review). Whoops. Anyway, this year went MUCH better - hard not to. I got the rating I feel I deserve and he said a lot of very nice things about me. We also had a nice conversation about our families (we have kids that are similar ages) and what I was planning on doing with my career in the next year. All in all, a great review and a much more pleasant experience, probably for both of us.

One more movie review. Friday night, we watch "Definitely, Maybe" with Ryan Reynolds and Abigail Breslin. A young girl convinces her divorcing dad to tell her the story of how he met and fell in love with her mother - only he combines multiple romances and changes names - and she has to figure out which one he ended up with. I thought it was pretty cute - I think we both enjoyed it. Although, sometimes I do get tired of the predictable endings in these romantic comedy movies.