Bump On Head

'Friends With Benefits': I'll Make Ya Bump

If you were wondering about an upside to Alzheimer’s, Friends With Benefits has found one. As Mr. Harper (Richard Jenkins) explains it to his son Dylan (Justin Timberlake), he’s learned a lesson as he’s begun struggling with the disease: it’s important to make the most out of each moment, not to waste time being proud or stupid or mean. The primary example he has in mind is the one most suited for the movie he and Dylan inhabit: you must recognize and cherish the love of your life. You must succumb to your rom-com fate.

And so Dylan does. He realizes that he’s been wrong to reject Jamie (Mila Kunis), the friend he met at the beginning of the movie and with whom he’s been fighting for at least 20 minutes. Thanks to dad, Dylan realizes that he must woo her back with an extraordinary gesture staged in a public place, that she will accept him, despite how stupid or mean he has been, and that they will fall into one another’s arms while a buoyant pop song fills the closing moments of their soundtrack. He knows this mostly because he and Jamie have spent the first part of their movie making fun of other movies. Specifically, they’ve been calling out the clichés and the nonsense in a romantic comedy they watch on DVD, starring Jason Segel and Rashida Jones, a film that includes all of the above, plus a white horse-drawn carriage in a New York with fake snow and palm trees.

All this is to say that Friends With Benefits is pretty much the movie you expect it to be. This even though it makes a lot of noise early on about not being that movie. The opening sequence lays down this irresolvable paradox in a trick, one that’s almost clever for a minute or so. As Dylan and Jamie each participate in a break-up on a sidewalk, he in LA and she in NYC, they appear “made for each other.” Both are berated by about-to-be-exes who have similar complaints. Hers, played by Andy Samberg, calls her “emotionally damaged” and whines, “Your big eyes kind of freak me out,” while his (Emma Stone) calls him “emotionally unavailable” and—as Exhibit A—fumes that he’s made her miss the start of a John Mayer show, namely, “Your Body is a Wonderland.”

The poke at Mayer is cute, but the cross-cut scenes are hardly less banal than he is.

Grass Gator 3630 Universal Bump & Feed Replacement String Trimmer ...

It claims to work with "99% of gas trimmers". Which may be true, with a caveat. Some trimmers have the housing for the reel permanently attatched, no way to remove without breaking it. So, if this is the case, you install the Universal Bump stacked onto the original housing. Which works, but, the spin of the line is now several inches further away, and likely well outside of the guard. I suppose this would be okay if you can adjust the guard to compensate. But generally there isn't a good way to adjust the guard like that. In my case, the trimmer I used to have had the permanent reel housing. I used the Universal Bump with it, but, it was not really good having the line spin outside the guard. Well, that trimmer has died and I bought a new trimmer. And this new one I got has a removable housing, so I took the Universal Bump off the old trimmer and put it on the new trimmer and I'm quite happy with it. Grass Gator now makes another similar product, called the EZ Reel. Not quite sure why they have two similar products. I haven't tried the EZ Reel. But, from looking at the information on their website, it has the same installation issue as the Universal Bump. I think the main difference between the two products is that the EZ Reel is supposed to be even easier to load, but I think it requires one specific line size. So I think I will stick with this unit. But check them both out to see which you think you would like better.

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