Soylent Stacy Is Made of People!

I thought as I'm sitting here waiting for my Linux machine to finish installing the latest sound drivers, I'd share a recent photo with you all.

Behold Stacy's latest hair style!

Pretty frickin' sweet!

Superman: Doomsday

So, one day later, I got to watch Superman: Doomsday. I have to say that I agree on all of Jon's points. It certainly was much better than Superman Returns which shall henceforth be known as Superman: Teh S uck.

Superman: Doomsday surprised me, though. I knew it was not a Saturday morning cartoon from its PG-13 rating, but I didn't expect the amount of carnage and senseless violence that Doomsday wrought on his way to Metropolis. There was a lot of killing. Stacy pointed out that every scene illustrated part of his power, his invulnerability to fire or bullets, his strength, what have you. I thought it was a very insightful comment from someone that is prone to react with disgust at animated violence and not that interested in things of a comic book nature. I was very impressed.

I was thinking about Jon's reaction to Anne Heche as Lois Lane as I watched. I think I know why it was so bothersome. In her first scene, Lois is overwhelmingly - er - Hechey. Her lines were delivered with such Hechiness that it was impossible not to find it jarring. It seemed after that initial burst, that Lois toned down the Hechiness and got about the business of being Lois, though. Perhaps that's why over the course of the movie she becomes much more tolerable and even likable.

The voice acting was good. It was startling to see how they had made Lex into a little bit of a skeevy perv, but nothing compared with Toyman's delivery. Well done on both Marster's and Dimaggio's parts. Adam Baldwin did an excellent job with Supes. His lines as Dark Superman were chilling in their normalcy. It was all just so matter-of-fact. I knew I recognized Jimmy's voice, but when I saw who it was, I couldn't figure out why. Then I looked up Adam Wylie's IMDB entry and found that he's been doing voice over work for quite some time, as well as many television appearances. I think I knew him best as the little kid on Picket Fences back in the mid-nineties.

For those of you that saw Superman: Teh S uck and came away feeling vaguely disappointed, or outright outraged, I recommend you pick up Superman: Doomsday and see how a Superman story should really be told.

I give Superman: Doomsday five out of five Unstoppable Killing Machines on a scale I just made up that doesn't mean anything.

Yar! I Missed It!

Arrr, 'twas Talk Like a Pirate Day yesterday, an' I didn' get to blog about it. Saddens, me heart, it does. Ah well, there be 364 other days O' the year ta swagger wi' the best of 'em. Here's ta hopin' ya had the best Talk Like a Pirate Day ever!


Got Pirattitude?

Happy Berfday to Me!

So, in case you don't read Jon's blog, it was my berfday yesterday. See, Jon made this!

It was in reference to his amusing question about whether or not I wanted Superman: Doomsday for Scott: Birthday, which I did, and I got. Thanks, Jon!

I also received a nostalgic scrapbook from Stacy. With the help of my mother, she crafted it using photos from my infancy until just before my mission to Ohio. It brought back a lot of great memories. Well, most of them. Seeing myself in my early teens reminds me of the one time in my life I was skinny. I lost the baby fat, stayed svelt for a few years, then started in on the pot belly that has since expanded to a spare 18-wheeler tire.

Man, I need to work out.

Anyway, Stacy and the girls also got me Metroid Prime 3 for the Wii (can't wait to try that out!) and a box of candy bars (cuz you know, I need the extra sugar to recuperate from the workout I'll be starting any day now...)

My mom, via my brother's shopping, sent me a Dungeons and Dragons book, The Book of Exalted Deeds. It should be interesting considering the current game we're playing has some part in the depths of hell. May come in handy there. Thanks mom!

Vince got me a CD I'd been thinking about getting for some time, Where's Neil When you Need Him? It's a compilation of tributes to and songs inspired by Neil Gaiman. I was going to listen to it at work today, but my Mac doesn't like it. It could be because the CD itself is black. It looks cool, but I have a feeling that the Mac can't handle it. It may have some weird pc app on it that is throwing the Mac for a loop too, either way, if I put this in my Windows machine at home and it works, then I don't think Apple has a leg to stand on when claiming that the Mac "just works". Either way, I will listen to it soon. Thanks Vince!

Stacy's grandparents, who I have adopted as my own, sent me the eminently useful gift of money. It came in very handy on a tight paycheck week. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Frisby!

I got an e-card from my sis, Julia, a phone call from my sis Tamara, and an entire ensemble rendition of the Happy Birthday Song from my brother David's family. Thanks guys!

It was a good birthday.

Beware the Deep Dish Dough

Stacy and I decided to splurge last night and order pizza before settling down in front of a movie with the kids. Having a craving for their deep dish crust and tasty toppings, we opted for carry-out from Uno's Chicago Pizzeria. We recently had a bad experience at another Uno's with the pizza dough being thoroughly uncooked. I managed to convince myself that it was OK and
continued to eat.

"Mmmmm. This pizza has really stringy dou-I mean, cheese! It's so tasty!"

We'd never really had the problem before, so it was easy to write it off as bad luck. Last night was worse. A cross section of a slice clearly showed about an eight of an inch of uncooked dough between the toppings and the crust. One bite and the underlying flavor of flour and eggs was unmistakable.

"Mmmmm. This pizza has really stringy chees-screw this, I can't do it."

Being at home, we figured it'd be easy just to fire up the oven and bake the pizza for a bit longer. HAH! After three 10-minute bakes, the dough was still noticeably raw under the toppings. I know this because I scientifically took more cross sections in my hermetically-sealed sterile lab with my sciency implements of cutting and measuring (translation: I used a pizza cutter on a slice and eye-balled the dough while standing in my kitchen.)

By then, the toppings were just past the point of overdone. It was a lost cause. We had bought two pizzas, a pepperoni for the parents and a cheese for the kids. Between trying to heat the two pizzas up, we lost an hour. It was a late dinner anyway, and our kids do not do well when they've had pizza dangled (from it's elastic dough, no less) in front of their faces, the smell wafting down the stairs like a cartoon wisp of steam tantalizing their nostrils. "I'm hungry," became a litany. They got to eat Pringles and grapes instead. Aren't we awesome parents?

Stacy left a nice long missive on Uno's website. I'm not prepared to say Uno's is teh s uck, but they're probably only going to get one more chance to impress me with their baking skills. I don't know if they used too much dough or if the toppings prevented the crust from baking properly, but that pizza was just not palatable enough to choke down. The toppings tasted good, though!

Kinda Dorky Nerd King am I

Damn you, Jon. I didn't need to know I was that much of a Kinda Dorky Nerd King.

Further Reason to go see Stardust

Neil Gaiman recently posted these on his journal, stating that,

These little "Tourism Guides" for the International release of STARDUST are rather fun (and, oddly, feel a bit more like the movie than the real ad campaign did).

(The link is mine, it takes you directly to a show times page. How convenient!)



Stormhold Tourism Board Video 1



Stormhold Tourism Board Video 2



Stormhold Tourism Board Video 3



Stormhold Tourism Board Video 4

Because "Plastic Balls Filled with Gas" Wouldn't Sell As Many Tickets

Jon, Casey, Jim (a friend and my chiropractor) and I went to see Balls of Fury this last weekend. Two words:

1. High
2. Larious

I'm a sucker for Christopher Walken. I can watch anything with him in it. Well, almost anything. I still refuse to watch Kangaroo Jack. Walken could have sold the movie to me on his merit alone, but the other scenes in the trailers looked funny too.

They were. And then some.

I was laughing through nearly the entire movie. Walken does not disappoint. First, we get Robert DeNiro playing a gay sky pirate in Stardust (GO SEE IT!) and now Walken playing a gay warlord with a passion for the Orient and as the Chinese say, Ping Pong. Directed by Ben Garant, of The State, Viva Variety, and Reno 911 fame, there were plenty of familiar faces in the cast, such as Thomas Lennon, playing the ball-busting Olympic champion from Germany, and Kerry Kenney, playing a Reno showgirl looking unsurprisingly like Wiegel under cover as a Reno showgirl.

For my money, no one curses in Chinese better than James Hong. I leaned over to Jon during his first scene and made the comment that losing Hong would be the end of a Hollywood institution. Who else is going to play the old Chinese dude? Speaking of Chinese (okay, it's a stretch, she's part-Vietnamese, but she plays Chinese in the movie!) Maggie Q looked stunning throughout the movie and had her share of funny scenes.

Our main man, Dan Fogler, is new to me, but man can he take a nutshot, repeatedly, much to my amusement. Way to take a few for the team, Fogler! His handler, however, made me sad. I believe George Lopez has real comedy potential, if he would just stop letting them pigeon-hole him into the tired stereotype. As a Latino actor in a comedy, he had literally two choices for a line once he starts firing a machine gun. I bet you can guess them before you read them:

1. Say hello to my lil' fren'!
2. You wanna play rough? Le's play rough!
   

Ohhh, which one did he pick? The suspense is all suspenseful! Who cares! C'mon! The Scarface references were old in the 80's, can we just let them rest now?

The cast was full of other notables, such as Jason Scott Lee, Aisha Tyler, Terry Crews, Robert Patrick, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, David Koechner, Patton Oswalt, and Masi Oka. Go ahead, click on 'em. You won't know half of them without seeing a picture, but then you'll be all, "Ohhh, that guy!"

So I admit, I went in to the movie expecting to be mildly entertained by Walken's antics and came out saying, "That could very well be the best movie about Ping Pong I've ever seen." Of course, Jim countered by saying, "It could also be the worst." Touche. It was extremely funny, though. Funny in a stupid way, but I'm delightfully low-brow, so it works for me. I'll definitely pick this up on DVD for repeated viewings as well.

I give Balls of Fury five out of five painful nut shots on a scale I just made up that doesn't mean anything. Hah! You thought I was going for the obvious five balls out of five balls, didn't you! You can't predict me, I'm all-um-unpredictable.

And thus, I bid you toodles.

P.S. Diedrich Bader as a male sex slave? Brilliant!

Because I Said So

The more perceptive of you may notice that I've added a new blog link to the right. "Because I Said So" is written by a 29 year old mother of 6 with a real talent for humorous writing. Those of you with kids will be thankful you don't have six crazy kids like her. Those of you with senses of humor like her will laugh. Those of you with both will be thankful you don't have six crazy kids like her while you laugh. Those of you with six or more crazy kids will nod your head and laugh. Those of you that are her would surprise me by reading this.

Happy Birthday Carla Gugino!

Happy birthday to my friend's and fellow blogger, Jon's blog, Threshold. For those few of you that come here from somewhere besides his blog, you should check it out. It's usually much more entertaining than here. Before you say anything, yes, I know that's not saying much.

Get with the Times, Old Media

It continues to boggle my mind at how reticent Old Media is to embrace the Internet. I can just picture the corporate heads in their stuffy suits in dark board rooms saying things like, "Ah, this interwebs thing is just a fad, we don't have to change anything," and, "I'm sure people will start buying magazines and papers again any day now."

I'm only saying this because I want something for free, naturally.

Well, not for free per se, just as an added service to something I already pay for. Namely, magazine subscriptions. The ability to scan and format a magazine into an easily portable file (such as pdf) has been around for years. Heck, up until I got my new job, I read most of my comics that way. Why not offer that format with your subscriptions, Old Media? Some magazine publishers already offer pdf as an alternative to ordering back issues. If a customer already has a subscription, then that customer could have access to the back issues that fall into the subscription period. I wouldn't mind paying a few extra dollars for this service either. Who wants to keep around a bunch of magazines when they can easily access them on a computer. Even better, such files can be transferred to PDAs and smart phones, making the content even more ubiquitous.

Instead, I have 12 issues of a magazine that I am patiently slicing up and scanning to prepare for my next Dungeons and Dragons campaign. It's a good thing I'm not worried about the condition of the magazines afterward. Get with the times, Old Media, and do my bidding!

Ramzina is Dead, Long Live Ramzina

For the past few years, I have been hosting the devil's own game. That's right, Dungeons and Dragons. Surely my soul will burn in hell. Actually, I'm more likely to get teased for being a major nerd than anything, but I've long since grown a tough exterior shell to protect me from such barrages. That's why, at night, I am known as...

ARMADILLO MAN!

Wait, no, that's not right. No, I'm just a nerd.

Our core group of gamers consists of myself, Stacy, and friends of ours, a married couple, Jamie and Casey. Another married couple, Paul and Karen, joined us recently. The particular campaign we'd been playing in has been going since Spring 2003. We've had various players join and leave the campaign and each player has had multiple characters. One good friend went from being a lecherous cleric (divine priest, for those not versed in the unholy terminology of the evil game) to a death-prone monk (think Shao-lin more than Friar Tuck).

Stacy, however, has played her character Ramzina from day one. She had a great track record with Ramzina, as a matter of fact. Hers was the only character that avoided death on a routine basis. Now, that is not because I was taking it easy on her because she's married to the DM, as could be evidenced by her repeated threats to have me sleep on the couch when her character faced the inevitable death.

Thankfully, death is not as insurmountable in my game as it is in Jack T. Chick's Dark Dungeons. All the players that have had characters die did not go on to commit grisly suicide because they couldn't get over the guilt. I have also avoided the couch so far.

While Stacy was in Utah, we continued playing with one of the other players subbing for her character. This would be fine except for recent developments. The entire group managed to get themselves slaughtered. As a RBDMiT (Rat Bastard Dungeon Master in Training) I get to be amused by the TPK (Total Party Kill), as the husband of one of the players, I must be
apologetic for my actions. Stacy's absence made it considerably easier to cackle evilly and play the RBDM card.

We finally got together again to play last night. In this session, I gave the choice to Stacy of either coming back to finish the campaign or retire her character (and thus everyone else's) for good. To my surprise, even with all of the juicy hooks I put in her path, she decided to retire Ramzina.

I have to admit, I was sad to see her go.

So, this marks the end of an era in our personal life, as a facet of Stacy is put to rest forever.

Don't worry, though. She rolled up a half-orc fighter for the next game that same night.

Three Week Old Travel Stories

Because you didn't demand it! Because it's the story that didn't have to be told! Because I don't not have better things to do!

That's right! It's the travelogue!

So, what's to say about a trip I took three weeks ago? I can tell you one thing, United Airlines sucks ass. I bought a bargain basement flight from Dulles to Denver to Salt Lake City with United since I had a credit from the big SNAFU last Christmas. The first bargain basement flight they tried to sell me would have cost exactly $1000.00 after the Christmas credit. I said to the United rep on the phone, I said, "You've got to be kidding me." You know what he said? Nothing. So I says to him, I says, "Are you serious?" I think he sensed an attitude change on my end of the line, he responded apologetically that it was the lowest rate he could get on the days I had. I finagled the days and times a little bit and brought my bill down to $350.00 after the credit. Things had not started auspiciously.

When checking into my flight at the kiosk at the airport, I was offered the option to "upgrade" to economy plus for an additional $45. I figured that there was no way it was worth an extra $45 just to add the word "plus" onto the end of my assignment. As it was, I didn't get a seat, just a message telling me to check in at the gate. Turned out I got an economy plus seat for free since they had sold out of their economy seats. Meh, I figured it couldn't be that big of a deal.

On the flight I noticed that I did have considerably more leg room than was usual in economy. It was nice, but I didn't figure it was worth $45. I was sooooo wrong. My flight out of Denver was delayed by three hours, but I had plenty to do at the airport. I was reading Neil Gaiman's Stardust, both at Jon's recommendation and to prepare for the movie. They also have a huge Crocs booth at the airport, presumably since Crocs are based out of Colorado. When I finally boarded my flight, I made my way to the baaaaaack row. Very back, right in front of the lavatory. I didn't care, it was just for a couple of hours. I didn't care, that is, until I sat down. Turns out that the extra leg room in economy plus wasn't taken from first class (yeah, right) nope, it was taken from economy. I couldn't even lower my tray table after my seat was in the reclined position.

United has found another way to squeeze blood from a stone. It was so uncomfortable that on the trip back, I footed the bill for the economy plus seats and did not regret it. Well, that's not entirely true. I regretted flying United and having to pay extra for what I should have with the base price of a ticket. Stacy and I have resolved to avoid United in all but the most dire circumstances. If Jet Blue or Frontier flies to where we're going from Dulles or Reagan, we're going with them. United sucks ass.

As for the actual visit, that went swimmingly. The first night out, Stacy and I spent the night at a themed bed and breakfast called the Anniversary Inn. We've spent quite a few anniversaries there, but this was the first time we stayed in the Egyptian-themed Mysteries of Egypt room. It was pretty damn sweet.

Who doesn't like ram/sphinx guardians where they sleep?

The face staring at us as we watched The Aviator was kinda creepy

Yes, that's a friggin' spitting cobra as a shower head over the two-person whirlpool tub. Stacy had a little bit of a problem with the giant snake, so she faced out, I thought it was pretty wicked.

Probably the least-used room, the little study was still cool to look at.

We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves with a night out on the town and an evening in the highly stylized interior of a pyramid. If you ever find yourself with a romantic partner in Utah, I highly recommend a visit to The Anniversary Inn.

The next day Stacy and her dad had a joint birthday party so I got to see all of her side of the family. That was fun, even though I'm still not very comfortable with 90% of them. I still feel very much an outsider with her dad's extended family. Good thing I get along great with Stacy's grandparents and siblings.

We hosted a barbecue/pool party/Wii session at my in-law's residential club house for my side of the family the next day. It was a blast seeing all of them there. I didn't get enough time to visit with everyone one-on-one, but my time there was short. Only my dad and his son could make it up from Southern Utah from his family, but it was nice meeting with them.

The rest of the time was spent either at Stacy's dad's place or my brother's house, the de facto hang out for my side of the family. We even got to help out with my youngest niece's sixth birthday party there. She was born shortly after Vicki.

It was a good time, well worth the traveling hassle. Most importantly, I got to see my wife and children for the first time in three weeks. I had to make the visit last for another three weeks as well. Thankfully, the long six weeks are ending tomorrow. I will be picking up my beautiful Stacy and wonderful girls at Reagan National Airport and filling my house back up. It's been entirely too quiet with just Blue and I around.

Still to come (maybe) My Exciting Experience With The Incredibly Expensive Coaster or, My Hard Drive, My Destiny. AND! Some thoughts on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows or, The Most Timely Post Since Three Week Old Travel Stories! AND! My Narrow Escape From Death Hurtling Twenty Stories After Being Set On Fire By An Angry Grizzly Bear or, This Never Actually Happened, Sorry To Get Your Hopes Up!

Killer Wasps Attack!

I was mowing the lawn today and noticed a large amount of dirt mounds scattered around the yard, many of them clustered around the doors to my shed. I like to keep the shed free of vegetation so the doors swing open easily, apparently that is what attracted the creators of the dirt mounds. This is actually the second year we've had them. I am not fond of insects at all. They make my skin crawl. Probably one too many bad sci-fi movie about mutant bugs back when I was a kid (ever see Bug from 1975? Cheesy as hell, but it still gives me occasional nachtmares, so does Arachnaphobia.) So I could just imagine what monstrous horrors lurked in the gaping holes of the many burrows I was tromping over during my chore. It wasn't long before I discovered what they looked like as one of these suckers came flying right at me.

Spla-DOW!

I had turned my weed eater over to fix the spline when the thing buzzed my head. Not cool. I panicked for a second, dropped the weed whacker, and retreated. The gigantor wasp, two inches if it was an 1/8th, backed off for a second too. I took the opportunity to rethread the weed eater and brandished it Texas Chainsaw Massacre style at the mammoth bug. I spun the spline at it a couple of times, hoping more to scare it away than do any real damage, though I wouldn't have been averse to seeing some dismemberment as well. No bug gets the best of me in my yard! The huge wasp zipped out of the yard after a couple of close calls with the weed eater. In retrospect, I was lucky that it was the particular breed it was, considering yellow jackets and hornets are aggressive and probably would have stung my ass a few times extra for good measure.

I wrapped up my weed killing before the B2 of wasps made its way back so I headed inside to do some research. Turns out my adorable little friend is none other than the Sphecius speciosus, or the Eastern Cicada Killer. This little feller is solitary as opposed to social, which means that it will not attack a human unless handled roughly, even to defend its burrow. Further more, the only ones to actively investigate people are males, ensuring that we're not other males encroaching on territory or a female ready to mate, I assure you, I was neither. However, even then, males can't sting, they can just poke with their sharpened tails.

The females create the burrows, paralyze cicadas and other insects, plant them in a chamber in the burrow, and then deposit an egg with the victim. The egg hatches over the summer and the larva overwinters in a cocoon after feeding off the cicada. Matter of fact, that image up nort' there is of a female cicada killer bringing a victim back to her burrow. Interestingly enough, it's not alive, but posed that way by one Professor Chuck Holliday (with a name like that, what's he doing outside of a recording studio?) from whom I got most of my cicada killer knowledge. Sure, there's a Wikipedia article, but I found his information, not to mention extensive picture and movie collection of the monster wasps much more enlightening.

They're fascinating bugs, but I'd rather not have them buzzing me when I'm out in the yard. You never know what batch of radioactive nuclear waste it was floating in earlier.

Just an example of a burrow, nothing to scale, but that hole is big enough to toss a dwarf down.

Here's a smaller wasp hitching a ride on Professor Chuck's hand after an exhausting cicada killing.

Thanks to Professor Chuck HOLLIDAY (what a frickin' sweet name) for all the cicada killer lore. Check out his excellent site on the subject if you're curious at http://ww2.lafayette.edu/~hollidac/cicadakillerhome.html

Debris from a Fiery Ball of Gas Otherwise Known as...

Stardust.

Was Stardust a good movie? Let's get that out of the way right off the bat. Hell yeah. I'll admit readily that I am a bit biased, loving both the author's entire body of work so far experienced and the actual book in question. However, my bias plays only a small portion of my instant fondness for the movie. As with all movie adaptations of books, whether they're full text, comic panels, or a mix of both, things change when moved from pages to screen. In most cases, if I've read a book before I see the movie, these changes serve as minor annoyances. Sometimes the changes make sense, sometimes they don't, they're almost always unwelcome.

I don't know if it was Neil Gaiman's extensive involvement in the production of the movie that helped or the creators' obvious love for the source material, but the changes between the two mediums did not bother me in the slightest here. Some of the differences were drastic, too, such as the entire climax. They felt as if they fit into the story, though. As if I had attended two different tellings of the same story by equally masterful storytellers, both of whom know how to weave the myriad pieces together to form a pleasing whole, no matter that the ingredients differ slightly.

The casting was well done. Everyone from the guardian of the wall (David Kelly) to the shady Ferdy the Fence (Ricky Gervais,) both of which are new characters to readers of the book. Original characters fared equally well with the protagonists Claire Daines playing Yvaine and Charlie Cox as Tristan (one odd change, removing the "r" from his name.) I am not a big fan of Daines, there's usually something about her eyes that bugs me. However, she and Cox did very well. The casting of the seven brothers of Stormhold was fitting as well, but you really have to see the movie or have read the book to understand where they come from. I loved seeing Peter O'Toole as the King of Stormhold. I could have used with more realistic arm throwing action, but I suppose when you get as old as O'Toole, you can spend your scenes reclining luxuriously in a magnificently appointed bed as well. Michelle Pfeiffer, no stranger to the role of villain, plays a delightful witch who you can't help but sympathize with every once and a while. That is, when she isn't busy transforming hapless goats into inn keepers (Hilario Dawson!) Perhaps the most notable bit of casting comes in the form of a very talented supporting actor, one Robert DeNiro. His Capt. Shakespeare is a considerable departure from the book, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Those of you that have seen the movie know why. He definitely stole the scenes in which he was featured and showed us a new layer of the DeNiro talent. Oh, and snagging Ian McKellen as the narrator is just badass.

Now that I'm done name-dropping, I can tell you that this is definitely a movie to add to your list of must-sees. It has high-fantasy, excellent action, magic, intrigue, quests, and a fair bit of romance. Whether you like fantasy movies, action movies, romantic comedy movies, or any combination of the above, this is one that will satisfy. My regards to the original creators, Messrs. Gaiman and Vess as well as those behind the movie, Vaughn and Goldman. I hope this one does well enough so we can see more of Neil's work make it to the big screen.

I give this movie seven out of seven slaughtered princes on a scale I just made up that doesn't mean anything.

Attack of the On Call Rotation

I'm pretty tired today. I was tired yesterday around 7:30 and decided to make it an extra-early night. On my way to bed, the page came through. Of course.

After dealing with one issue for two hours, the next one came up. That one took four hours before I tried to wash my hands of the issue and go to bed. half an hour later, just past that point of wakefulness when you slide dreamily into the abyss of sleep, the next page came. This time, I had to sit on a conference call for another hour, contributing nothing but a groggy presence since the problem was far removed from my team's processes.

By 2:30 am I had enough. I told the call that I was out, hung up, and fell asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow.

On Call is fun!

Moblo to Show...Yo?

I had intended to post a short entry showing what an awesome and sweet wife I have. However, Comcast is working in my area, installing fiber (YES!) and so I have no cable and thus no Internet access. I only plan on dialing in if I get paged tonight.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention, I'm on call for the first time this week. I've already had a couple of calls. I'm hoping the rest of my rotation is quiet.

Anyways, now I'm moblo-in' and I can't upload the pic of the cool Cookies by Design basket that Stacy sent me. It's full of cookies in the shape of pagers, computers, PDAs, and cell phones. "One for every day until we fly back," Stacy tells me. It was a nice way to start out the morning. She's awesome.

Update de la Excellente:

It appears that the pic I attached to my email was posted along with the entry. That's pretty dang cool.

Update de la Poopoo:

No such luck on the paging front. I was paged just as I pulled out of my neighborhood on the way to see a movie with a bunch of the guys I know from church. It figures. Luckily, it was for something my group doesn't support, so I got out of the call quick. It made me only a few minutes late for The Simpsons Movie. I think I'll get over it, somehow.

The Identity of the Supreme Bourne Ultimatum

Casey and I went to see The Bourne Ultimatum opening weekend. We decided to check it out the latest and last installment in the Bourne series during a matinee to avoid evening crowds. We went to the new Fox Theatres about midway between our two towns. The new theater is huge and very nicely appointed. The seats are comfy and have a fair amount of recline. The stadium seating gives you plenty of viewing space above the head of the person in front. The aisles could be a bit wider, but with the reclining seats, something had to give. Owing to the opening weekend, school break, and weekend timeframe, the theater drew a big crowd, but it wasn't as bad as primetime.

I came into this movie with the knowledge that there would be little to no relation to its inspiration, the book of the same title by Robert Ludlum. The departure of the first movie from the printed work made that possibility moot anyway. There was no way they could tie them together. However, for those of you that enjoy the movies, I highly recommend the books. Same action, better plots and cohesion. Plus, Marie doesn't get ganked in the second book like she did in the second movie.

The movie had plenty of action with Matt Damon performing most of his stunts. I heard him mention in a recent interview that he's getting too old for this @#$%. Wait, that was Murtaugh, sorry. He did say that at 36, he was finding it harder to recover after a day of filming fight scenes and rooftop chases. Personally, I'd be glad to be able to do half the stuff he does in this movie and still be able to wake up in the morning.

Opposite Damon is a cast of decent actors that make a good backdrop to the intrigue and action that is this movie's staple. Julia Stiles reprises her role from the first two movies. There was a romance between Jason and Stile's character Nikki threatening like a thunderhead looming on the horizon for a moment. Thankfully, the weather cleared and that bit of unnecessary fluff didn't make it on the screen. Bourne is pitted against Pamela Landy, played by Joan Allen from the previous movie as well as a whole stable of spooks led by David Straithairn, who is just dreamy according to Michelle at www.bestweekever.tv. Albert Finney, who has been around forever but only really managed to claw his way into my memory after his role on 2003's Big Fish, makes an appearance as well. I see from his imdb entry that Finney portrayed Ebenezer Scrooge in the 1970 film Scrooge, which may or may not be the version that makes its way to the airwaves every year. I can't be bothered to remember. Either way, those named did an excellent job providing a murky conspiratorial atmosphere. I was less than impressed by Scott Glenn's scenes, but they were graciously few.

The Bourne Ultimatum gets high marks for some intense, personal action scenes (no cars versus helicopters or Bourne versus jets in this one) and good old fashioned spook conspiracies. I did not like the shaky camera style, however. I found I had a headache after about a half hour of the jittery camera work. The kid kicking the back of my chair throughout the entire damn film didn't help that much. I still found myself enjoying the movie though, so it gets points for that as well.

I give The Bourne Ultimatum four out of five amnesiacs kicking government agency ass on a scale I just made up that doesn't mean anything.

The Simpsons Hit the Big Screen

Not a timely headline, obviously, but since this post isn't timely either, it is fitting.

I caught a showing of The Simpson's silver screen debut solo last week on a slow day. I thought of calling Jon and inviting him, but he'd already seen it a few times while in Michigan and I didn't think he'd want to schlep all the way to Manassas to see it again in the rundown theater down the street.

The movie is funny. It's got a lot of the elements that make the television series amusing, including celebrity cameos, appearances from Springfield's non-Simpson residents, quirky gags, physical humor, etc. In fact, the list of things that The Simpsons Movie had that the weekly television show does not is surprisingly short. Jon and I discussed our surprise that the creators did not take advantage of the format more than they did. For example, one (not so shocking) difference was the inclusion of nudity. I'm not going to give away the variety of nudity for those of you that haven't seen it, but I will say that it's not salacious or shocking in the least. This may reveal me as a horrible parent, but I wouldn't care if my daughters saw it, it's that harmless. Other additions were the widescreen format and the extended time. That's about it.

So yes, to see The Simpsons Movie is to pay money for something you can get free, which is pointed out by Homer himself within the first few minutes of the movie. It's still fun to see America's favorite yellow family up on the big screen, popcorn and soda in hand. If you're a fan of the Simpsons, check it out. Otherwise, you could easily wait for the DVD and subsequent television release.

Perhaps my only real complaints about the movie was the lack of more scenes with the non-Simpsons. The television show is entertaining not just for the Simpsons' antics, but for the townspeople's reactions (or lack thereof). While we got to see quite a few of the other players, I felt there could have been more.

I give The Simpsons Movie three out of five naked unnamed Simpsons characters performing unspecified antics on the silver screen on a scale I just made up that doesn't mean anything.

Yeah, I'm Still Here, So What? You Wanna Fight About It?

It's been weeks since my last post. If asked, I don't think I could come up with a satisfactory answer to the question why. Perhaps it's because my trip to see my wife and girls in Utah was harder on me than I thought it would be. It did signal the half-way point in my quasi-bachelorhood, but coming home also meant it would still be another 3 weeks before I saw my family again. Since then, I've had plenty of time to blog, but no inclination. I expect I will get a couple of entries in some time this week. I've been to see The Simpsons and Bourne Supremacy so I'll have a couple of entries about those. I've had some major computer problems, so I've got a bit to write about that. Then there's the trip to Utah itself. I'll see what I can get up here on all of that within the next few days.