Haunted Downtown Trolley Tour

Dan'l and the llorona.


Dan'l and the chupacabra.


Dan'l is my partner in crime. The bus driver? Not so much.

Dan'l and I had the opportunity to go on a tour of haunted places around downtown Laredo. (Richard is a scaredy cat.) The tour is organized by the same people who put together the "Santo" movies.

I was really looking forward to it because the only other haunted tour (of bars in Austin) was a lot of fun. We met at a bar, had a few beers, went on the walking tour and by the time we got to the part where the guide points to the Driskill Hotel, I became the cowardly lion and started saying in my head, "I do believe in ghosts. I do believe in ghosts. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do believe in ghosts."

Downtown Laredo is very scary at night. It's really dark and the smell of sulfur cuts through the air. Years and years and years ago, a friend and I saw a late showing of "Candyman" at a cinema downtown and we practically ran to my car. The movie combined with a cold and dark downtown (and the hookers in the shadows) made me wish I had stayed at home.

So I'm sad to say I was a little disappointed at yesterday's tour. The stories were scary, but when I took a look at the buildings from the comfort of the bus/trolley, well, I felt very safe. I think if they had let us get off the bus and come face to face with the buildings, that might have been scarier. Oh well. Until next year.

Myssi's Movie Mondays

Dan’l and I went to see “El Santo en Anónimo Mortal” at a museum downtown Friday night. It wasn’t movies, Shakespeare or jazz on the park, but it was better because the weather was cool, they provided benches (no sitting on wet grass) and it wasn’t crowded. Plus free wine is always a bonus.

El Santo is a masked wrestler who happens to solve mysteries and fight crime during the day. He even has his own Scoobies.

I used to watch El Santo movies with my dad when I was little, but I don’t remember much about plots. (El Santo made several movies in character—sort of like James Bond.) When I tried to explain to Dan’l what we were about to watch, I said, “El Santo fights bad guys.” I was wrong. El Santo is more than a fighter, he solves mysteries.

The whole movie unfolded like a Law & Order episode. Old guys around town are dying. El Santo and his Scoobies finally connect the victims to each other—they were German immigrants and they fought the Nazis during World War II. El Santo was able to deduce this from the information his Scoobies got for him—detecting and forensic science in the ‘70s! In Mexico!

But the best thing about the movie was the soundtrack. I don’t know who put the music together, but the jazzy soundtrack classes up the movie.

Watch it with subtitles and then watch it again without sound and make up your own lines. It’s a lot of fun both ways.

How Much for the Cat in the Window?

Our cat used to run away whenever I'd try to get a picture of him in the window. Not anymore. Lazy butt.

Excuse the ghetto blinds.

Movie Monday

My name is Myssi and I am a dork.

Renaissance festivals. Star Wars. Star Trek. Nascar. Dallas Cowboys. These are some things which adults get crazy about. They get so crazy into some of these things that they drag their poor innocent children into their obsession.

I promised myself years ago I would not drag my son into any of my crazy obsessions. Dan’l has not dressed up as any Star Trek characters and I have not forced him to watch Trek marathons. Turns out I didn’t have to because my son seems to enjoy a lot of the same things I enjoy (especially Popeyes).

So it was with a bit of hesitation that I suggested we rent “My Name is Bruce” starring, directed by, produced by, narrated by, scored by and distributed by Bruce Campbell. I wasn’t sure if this would be too much Bruce for Dan’l to handle. He’s too young to be a die-hard fan of anything for more than two days.

Turns out, Dan’l was ready to dabble in major dorkdom. He liked the movie and we even saw almost two hours worth of DVD extras.

Dan’l became a fan of BC when we started watching “Burn Notice.” I only started watching “Burn Notice” because of BC. Dan’l wanted to watch it because he thought the show looked cool and lots of stuff blew up. But somehow Dan’l became aware of BC’s awesomeness and started noticing BC in movies and online.

Now I can tell all of my friends with young children, it’s OK to share with your child, but don’t push it too much. Eventually, we all become our parents. I hated Tejano music because my parents played it all the time when I was growing up and now I sing along to Selena.

I’m so proud.

Myssi's Movie Mondays

This weekend was about mindless TV (OK, when is it not?).

Dan’l (my TV partner) and I have avoided the TV room these past few days because it gets really hot. So we’ve been busy doing other things—such as crocheting, eating, thumb wrestling. When we finally got around to watching something on TV, we needed something that wasn’t too long or complicated and we settled on “Killer Hair” (recorded last week) and “Hostile Makeover” on Lifetime Movie Network.

Now before anyone tells me I’m one step from dressing Dan’l in a dress, he was interested in watching these two movies because the lead actress appears in “Psych,” one of D’s favorite shows. Also, he somehow happened to be touched with the Battlestar stick because he’s a fan of Mary McDonell, even though he says he’s never seen BSG or "Dances With Wolves" (but he did see her on “The Closer”).

OK, back to the movies. The two are based on the “Crimes of Fashion” book series. I’ve never read any of the books and probably won’t, but the stories and the movie were fun in a Scooby Doo way. A fashion columnist, who insists she has training as a serious journalist (don’t we all?), happens to stumble upon murders and cover-ups in the fashion world of Washington, D.C.

The killer in the first one was unexpected, and given that, we were able to figure out who the killer was in “Hostile Makeover.” As I said, pure mind candy.

My only regret was that we saw “Killer Hair” on Saturday and we missed “Doctor Who.”

For Your Amusement

I saw a ladybug one morning. I guess it's better than seeing a cockroach.

Myssi's Movie Mondays

I expected to be a bit productive this weekend and not spend so much time in front of the TV. I had decided that if I was going to spend my time in front of the TV, I was going to watch shows/movies on the DVR or Netflix DVDs. Well I did and I didn’t.

I spent most of yesterday watching TCM. It started with “His Girl Friday,” my favorite movie. Rosalind Russell plays a reporter who is about to quit her job because she’s going to leave the business to marry an insurance salesman. Her editor, played by Cary Grant, doesn’t want her to leave because he loves her. So he happens to mention the hot story for the evening because he knows she won’t be able to resist. She can’t, breaks things off with her fiancé and ends up with Cary Grant, covering a strike during their honeymoon.

After it was over, I thought about doing some laundry, but I made myself more comfortable on the couch and watched “Ball of Fire.” The channel guide summary made it sound boring, but I thought I’d give it a chance anyway. It turned out to be a nice movie. I didn’t buy Gary Cooper as an English professor, but I do have a soft spot for guys who know their English. OK, so Gary Cooper and seven other professors/doctors are writing an encyclopedia. GC is in charge of the entry on slang and decides to do field research. He meets with Barbara Stanwyck who plays a nightclub singer. She teaches him about slang and he teaches her about falling in love with an egghead.

The opposite of that couple followed with “To Have and Have Not,” Bogey and Bacall’s first film together. I don’t understand the politics going on in the background, but I still enjoyed the movie. It’s a love story; everyone can relate to that.

“Some Like it Hot,” another of my favorite movies, was also on TCM. Men in drag. How can it not be hilarious? Plus Jack Lemmon was a great actor. He looks like he’s having fun even though he’s in high heels and a girdle.

Despite spending about eight hours on TCM, I did manage to squeeze in some DVR time. I saw a very strange movie, “House” or “Hausu.” It’s a very strange movie; it’s supposed to be scary, but it’s also funny. It reminded me of the “It's a Good Life” episode of the “Twilight Zone” movie—the one where the little boy has powers to get and do whatever he wants—because it’s a bit cartoonish in the way it’s shot.

Not so funny was “Raising Arizona.” It seems that every list of top movies raves about this movie, but I didn’t think it was that great. It was entertaining, but after watching a few Coen brothers movies, it was pretty easy to predict what was going to happen. John Goodman is bad news, the lone scary guy is really really bad news and bad stuff happens to the main character no matter how much he tries to redeem himself.

I only now realized that three of the movies that I watched this weekend are on Hulu. So much for DVR progress.