Jeez Jon

Recession Help: Tuesday Night Movie Club

This started months ago, I believe in October. Tom and the cadre of neighbors we hang with were bandying around some ideas of how to entertain ourselves during these tight economic times.  They struck on the idea of watching our DVD of Clash of the Titans one Tuesday night.  We all gathered at Sue's, did a potluck dinner and watched 80's camp fantasy unfold in front of our eyes.  We'd all seen it before, of course, but it was great watching it again, especially in a group setting.  So, the idea came to make it a weekly ritual.  We'd get together on Tuesday nights, and watch an 80's fantasy (then Sci-Fi) film with a potluck dinner and lots of company.  The film had to be rather campy.  So, we ruled all ruled out The Dark Crystal, deeming it too good.  After Titans, we watched Legend.  And The Beastmaster. Then Excalibur. Then The Last Starfighter. And Flash Gordon. Etc.

The bulk of the films come from our individual libraries, so it's not like we're spending oodles of cash every week.  We also try to theme the food we're eating to the film we're watching.  For Flash Gordon, we did a Mongolian-style stir fry.  Since the setting of The Last Starfighter is a trailer park, we did a lot of trailer trash cuisine (which meant a lot of mac-'n-cheese  w/franks).  Frequently, we'll make too much food for the group (which ranges in size each week from 5 to 9, depending on who's available), so we'll have plenty of leftovers to eat throughout the week. 

We exhausted the 80's sci-fi with the one-two punch of the seriously obnoxious, smug, boy-it-doesn't-hold-up-well Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai. We all universally hated it.  I didn't remember digging it too well when I saw it on cable way back in '85, but yeesh, it's awful.  The following week, we sat through Heavy Metal, the boobtastic "adult" animated fantasy film.  It's not a good movie, and it did not go over well at all.  Frustrated by all the boob and no peen action, our neighbor Mitch said she'd take care of the film for the following week... which was the excellent Forgetting Sarah Marshall. So now, we are each taking turns surprising each other with our movie selection.  Last week, Shawn brought us Slither, which was pretty awesome.  The week before, Sue put on The Wizard of Oz... but set to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. The best section is when Dorothy lands in Oz and arrives in Munchintown, and... well, just watch.

Pretty amazing, no? 

The whole point of this is that you can entertain yourselves cheaply and thoroughly by just going through your own movie libraries, venturing into your kitchen, and calling some friends.  Pretty easy... and tons of fun.

Recession Help: Brownbagging Lunch

I'm two-and-a-half weeks into Goofy Basic Cable Relationship Show, and the job is pretty damn awesome.  It's a lot of work with a long commute, but all things considered, I'm pretty happy with it.  My auditions have been non-existent, which is something I came to terms with over the weekend.  It is what it is; I can check in with my agents so much.  So, my days consist of me getting up early, commuting 45 minutes to an hour to the gym by work, working out, showering & changing at the gym, then after a 5 minute drive I work for 10 to 11 hours, then a 45 minute to an hour commute back home.  By the time I'm home, I'm pretty fried, as you can imagine. 

After being unemployed for so long, I'm trying to pinch my pennies, and the easiest expense to cut down on is lunch.  I've been brownbagging it: bringing in leftovers from homemade dinner from the night before is the usual method.  Sometimes it's some shredded cheese and a packet tortillas and boom, instant microwave quesadillas.  Throw in some fruit and there's lunch.  Tom will sometimes make up a big thing of stew or soup or some veggie casserole dish specifically for us to bring in for lunch for the week, which is a pretty brilliant solution.

But here's my problem.  One of my most favorite things in the world is going out to eat.  I love the whole experience of eating out with friends and family. Trying new restaurants, figuring out what new entree to try, comparing one pad see-ew at one place to another -- I love all of it.  I also love the act of being away from work or home and sitting around a table or a booth (or a counter) and sharing a meal, talking about things serious and frivolous, light and heavy, meaningful and trivial.  I love it.  You can also learn a lot about somebody by eating with them.  What they will eat, what they won't eat, how they eat (fast, slow, meticulous, messy, etc). So, every time I see my coworkers go out to eat, there's that part of me that wants to chuck what's in the work fridge in a wrinkled, faded Ralph's plastic bag and go out with them.  Sure, I have a delicious homemade tofu stir fry waiting for me here, you guys are off getting Cuban food!  But then, I think about how much money you spend when you eat out for lunch every day.  That shit adds up fast.  Back when I worked at "Yo Momma", I went out to eat all the time.  After a month of that, I got my credit card statement and gulped.  Tom looked at it and said "Jon, you spent over $200 last month on lunch.  Lunch."

Since then, I bring my lunch every day.  If I do forget to bring my lunch, I'll go out to eat.  If we're planning ahead (someone's last day, birthday, etc.), I'll go out to eat with my co-workers.  But most of the time, I'm sitting at my desk, eating something either Tom or I (...lately mostly Tom) made for dinner the night before. People will comment on how good it looks or smells, and I'll give them a polite "Thank You", thinking that it's a pretty good way to save some cash.  Which we all could stand doing right now, you know?

Recession Help: Guitar Hero World Tour

Since our country has been in a recession since December 2007, we all have had to tighten our belts and make do with less.  In that tradition, here is the introduction of the Recession Help topic here at Jeez Jon.  We need to be able to entertain ourselves with less dough, and who better to come up with that than an unemployed actor & pop culture junkie.

When Tom and I got married, my coworkers at Trading Spaces got Tom and I a Nintendo Wii, with Guitar Hero III.  Now, the Wii has gotten a considerable work out since October, as Tom, the neighbors and I have taken full advantage of the Wii Sports game that comes with the console.  After getting a taste of Rock Band from Krystyn, Tom got a most inspired idea.  So, for Christmas, Tom... er, sorry, Santa got Tom and I the Guitar Hero World Tour Band Kit.  This comes complete with a guitar controller, a mic, and a drum kit controller.  It took us a while to break it in, but now, it's become a habit amongst Tom, the neighbors and myself.  Tom usually does vocals:

Susan, Shawn and DY take turns on guitar & bass:

... and Susan and I take turns on drums.

Sometimes, when there's a Killers song or I want to take a crack at Muse's "Assassin", I'll take to the mic as well:

I mentioned I don't have any shame, right?

Doing this music video game is a great recession hobby because neither Tom or I nor our friends are exactly swimming in cash right now, so we needed to find stuff for us to do that costs very little in the cash department but delivers in the fun department.  That's what Guitar Hero is doing for us right now.  Don't have the cash to go to Disneyland but enough for some Two-Buck Chuck and some snacks?  Add those to Guitar Hero and boom, you have a whole day of fun set. Sitting around bored, not sure what to do?  Guitar Hero! And that's what we, as the El Cazadors, have done.

They also have the option of a customizable avatars.  Here's mine:

Fun, huh? 

Now, with anything, Guitar Hero can be overdone.  There was a point about a week ago after us constantly playing GHWT in every available down period that I did need some time away from it.  But lemme tell you, sometimes you just want to rock out and be a rock star for while.  And there's nothing wrong with that.