Because I Said Tso

2003-06-30T22:00:00.000-05:00

HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa!!!!!!!!!!!

2003-06-23T02:58:00.000-05:00

Now here's a superhero I could really get into. Why don't they follow the current hollywood trend and turn this one into a live action movie as well?

Stripperella: an exotic dancer by night, a sexy superhero by... later night.

2003-06-21T02:56:00.000-05:00

Thunder... Thunder... Thunder...
Thundercats! Ho!!!

2003-06-10T00:30:00.000-05:00

Just found out about a new movie coming out next year that looks to be pretty cool. It seems the legendary character vampire hunter, Dr. Van Helsing will be going up against the top 3 monsters/villians of all time movie history! I think he usually sticks to vampires, but in this movie he's taking on not only Dracula, but Frankenstein's monster and the Wolfman as well! Should be sweet. Check out the movie site: http://www.vanhelsing.net/

2003-05-22T20:08:00.000-05:00

I give you the 2002 golf season results. Little Reed (a.k.a. Ed) has compiled a spreadsheet complete with stats of last year's golf outings. As you can see, I dominated most of the time. What can I say except: I got game.
- Zigfield Troy (Woodridge, IL) -
C.Tso 47 / C.Reed 50 / E.Reed 53
- Twin Lakes (Westmont, IL) -
C.Tso 43 / C.Reed 46 / E.Reed 53
- Pottawatomie (St. Charles, IL) -
C.Tso 61 / C.Reed 63 / E.Reed 70
- Hyatt Newporter (Newport Beach, CA) -
C.Tso 40 / C.Reed 46 / E.Reed 51
- Hyatt Newporter (Newport Beach, CA) -
C.Tso 36 / C.Reed 46 / E.Reed 48
- Twin Lakes (Westmont, IL) -
C.Reed 46 / C.Tso 53 / E.Reed 56
- Downers Grove (Downers Grove, IL) -
C.Tso 68 / C.Reed 70 / E.Reed 71
- Spartan Meadows (Elgin, IL) -
C.Tso 61 / C.Reed 62 / E.Reed 70
- Western Acres (Lombard, IL) -
C.Tso 58 / C.Reed 59 / E.Reed 63
- Ken-Loch (Lombard, IL) -
C.Reed 48 / E.Reed 50 / C.Tso 53
- Downers Grove (Downers Grove, IL) -
C.Reed 65 / E.Reed 72 / C.Tso 55(INC.)

2003-05-02T16:07:00.000-05:00

Well... my much anticipated summer concert series is about to begin. Every year when summer rolls around, the best things to look forward to are always concerts and golf. What else can a man possibly ask for? Tonight, the Wallflowers will serve as a warmup for the rest of the concerts this summer.
Here's the list so far:
5/2 - The Wallflowers (The Vic -aka Brew & View) - I saw these guys once when they were opening up for Blues Traveller in DeKalb, IL. Everybody who I went with said they sucked, but I thought they were actually pretty good.
6/26 - Fleetwood Mac (Allstate Arena) - Not my favorite venue to go see a concert, but it will have to do. I guess the one good thing Bill Clinton did while in office was to talk the Mac into getting back together.
6/29 - Fleetwood Mac (Summerfest) - That's right... a double dose of the Mac. I love summerfest. Lot's of great food, beer, and free concerts. Too bad this one isn't free though.
7/5 - Sheryl Crow (Taste of Chicago) - A free show at the Taste. Truth be told, I really don't like the Taste of Chicago all that much, but how the hell can I pass on a free show. Especially if it's Sheryl Crow!
7/6 - Dave Matthews Band (Alpine Valley) - My favorite place for a summer show. This will be the second concert in as many nights. We'll be sure to get there a few hours early as getting piss drunk while tailgating is half the fun.
7/12 - Bon Jovi with Sheryl Crow (Alpine Valley) - Two weekends in a row for Alpine Valley. I can't seem to get enough of Sheryl Crow either. As for Bon Jovi, let's just hope they do most of the old classic hits. Newer Bon Jovi leaves something to be desired.

A couple more that I don't have tickets for yet...
7/19 - REO Speedwagon & Styx (Tweeter Center)
9/6 - Aerosmith & KISS

I looks to be a great summer for concerts!

2003-04-16T20:50:00.000-05:00

General Tso: The man, the myth, the chicken. This guy sounds like he was pretty ruthless... Now everytime I eat the chicken I will think of Tso's enemies getting "sliced and diced" to death. Hmmm... maybe this guy was onto something.

"Is it possible that, struggling to carve out a new life in America under backbreaking adversities, and having heard of the sword skills of the remorseless General Tso (who had the top leaders of the Nian Rebellion executed with the proverbial "death of 10,000 cuts"), the overseas exiles indulged in some gallows-humor about their old enemy? That the chopped-up chicken dish may have gotten its name from the sliced and diced victims of Tso's grim reprisals?"

Apparently somebody has also made General Tso into a comic strip. And just a quick warning: It's not funny.

2003-04-10T00:33:00.000-05:00

Well it seems that Saddam Hussein has either run away or he caught a bomb up the ole wazoo. Either way, he's not in charge any more and his and his regime's butts just got smoked. We just had a 3-week war which has to be one of the shortest wars in the history of wars. And to quote Dennis Miller... "Hell, Joe Millionaire took 8 weeks to choose his soul mate and he didn't even get into her 'Baghdad'." Makes you wonder what the heck took them so long to finish the hundred-years war. Seriously though, props to the troops out there who got the job done so quick and congrats to the Iraqi's who no longer have to live in fear.

2003-04-02T01:26:00.000-06:00

Is it true? Do most college students pee in the shower? Madonna says, "Everyone does two things. Everyone picks their nose, and everyone pees in the shower." Man... am I glad I wore shower shoes when I was in those college dorm showers. Hell, George Costanza did it and look where it got him...
And for the record: I do not. Okay, okay... one time when I was 10, I went in a swimming pool. But that's it!! Oh yeah, and in the Pacific Ocean too but I looked to make sure nobody was around.

2003-03-27T16:49:00.000-06:00

It seems that the Big Reed is going out to Las Vegas again with Bigger Reed (his dad). Little Reed won't be making the trip this time because he couldn't get any time off from work. That's probably good though, because he didn't have the best of times out there before (see previous vacation post). Anyways, Big Reed said he could place some futures for me out there so maybe I should go with the Cubs to win the World Series this year. I think they're finally due. Too bad I would have to wait until October to find out if I had won that bet. It would be so much easier to just win next week's lottery instead.

2003-03-22T23:31:00.000-06:00

What's with this fondue thing. If I go into a restaurant, I expect the food to be cooked when it arrives. And all this fondue grease insn't helping either. I feel sick after all that grease. Needless to say, it will be a very long while before I do fondue again.

2003-03-19T22:28:00.000-06:00

A big THANK YOU and GOOD LUCK to all the allied troops out there. I know they're not in the middle of the desert checking out this blog, but I'm just trying to throw some good vibes out their way. Keep safe!

2003-03-18T16:56:00.000-06:00

Interesting movie news. I'm usually down for any movie with a futuristic setting. I know one thing... whoever they get to play the lead had better be as scantily-clad as the cartoon character.

Karyn Kusama Developing Aeon Flux
Tuesday, March 18, 2003 12:48 CST
According to Variety, Girlfight writer/director Karyn Kusama is the leading candidate to helm Paramount and MTV Films' Aeon Flux, the live-action feature version of MTV's futuristic cable series.
Kusama is in final talks to develop the last part of the script with the intent to direct the film. The project is based on the animated series created by Peter Chung, which centers on an acrobatic superheroine who is the top agent in an underground organization.
Project will be produced by MTV Films and Gale Anne Hurd's Valhalla production company.

2003-03-17T13:08:00.000-06:00

Did you know Kevin Smith actually named his daughter Harley Quinn? How cool is that?

2003-03-17T12:54:00.000-06:00

Hmmm... perhaps I should go back to school to study my first passion, UBW. Or maybe I should go to South Korea for a year. If their neighbors to the north were not causing all sorts of problems, I might have actually considered it. Here's the job description from Monster.com:

US-IL-South Korea-English Teachers Need in South Korea - NO EXP REQ
No Teaching Experience or Knowledge of Korean is required
Bachelors Degree (3-4 year) or Equivalent Required
Please note: You must be from a Country that is Recognized by Korean Immigration as being an English Speaking Country. The Mother Tongue of the Country must be English. (Ex: Australia, United States of America, Britain, Scotland, New Zealand, Canada)
One Year Contract Includes
- Furnished Apartment
- Private Medical Insurance
- One Month Severance Pay at completion of Contract
- Free Internet Access
- Round Trip Airfare
- Monthly wage of 1,600,000 to 2,100,000 WON per month (Depending on location and teaching experience)
- Paid leave on National Holidays (approx. 14 per year)
- Paid Vacations and Sick Days
Other bonuses
- Low cost of living (Transportation, Utilities etc)
- Low income tax (3-5%)

2003-03-15T02:28:00.000-06:00

Okay.. just a couple of links to add to this whole "celebrity" thing.

Snopes
Scroll down about two-thirds of the way down. Very eloquently put.

Citizens Against Celebrity "Pundits"
You'll have to ignore many of the idiot posters on the site, but I agree with the general position of the petition.

Scrappleface
Onion-like, but probably true nonetheless. Not to mention it's a good chuckle. (not celebrity related)

2003-03-15T00:59:00.000-06:00

All right.. all right, my so called hidden agenda has at last been revealed by Diggerblue here. While it is true that I would support the President's decision to go to war, my argument here is still based on the negative effects of celebrities speaking out to any political issue. Specifically, Diggerblue asks, "...as long as celebrities are endorsing what they truly believe in and not what they simply believe to be the "popular cause" that will net them more viewers, what's the problem?"

Well here's the problem. Hollywood celebrities known for their intense liberalism have made their views loud and clear and the problem here is that things get blown way out of proportion. We get only a lop-sided view of the issue because while most Hollywood stars get to voice their views in front of cameras, buy television spots, and take out print ads against the war, the other side of the argument doesn't get nearly as much publicity. A regular Joe-Schmoe-American in support of the President doesn't get these same privledges a Hollywood celebrity gets and therefore has a smaller voice. Let's face it, no TV crew is going to be rushing to cover Mr. Anonymous John Doe's side of the issue. So just because celebrities have the resources to make their side of the issue more well heard, does this make their side of the argument any more "right"? It appears so doesn't it? We are hearing everyday how Sean Penn is against this and Jessica Lange is against that, but we don't ever hear from regular people who support this and that. When celebrities speak out on political issues, they are basically making their voices heard over the voices of every other non-celebrity person out there. And here I thought that in this country everyone was suppose to have an equal voice. Apparently not.

Once again, I'm not trying to trounce on anyone's first amendment rights here. If celebrities really want to speak out then by all means speak out. But just think of the negative effects of such an action before you run your celebrity-mouth.

2003-03-14T14:08:00.000-06:00

Okay... I'm going to get slightly political here (but really not too much I guess). I just have a short rant to go off on as I've seen one too many celebrities irresponsibly voicing their opinion on the impending war with Iraq. Actually, there's really very little political value in this post, but here I go anyway:

As a free American, I believe everyone (even celebrities) has the right to free speech. However, the power of celebrity status should be used very responsibly. By publicly endorsing one side or the other, celebrities are effectively altering public opinion. When this happens, all reasonable debate goes out the window and the issues turn into popularity contests. Imagine the potential consequences if popular opinion on important issues came down to which artists sold more records or sold more movie tickets. We do not want issues to be decided based on the number of Americans willing to jump on a particular bandwagon. The power of celebrity endorsements are evident everyday in the things we buy. We get cellular phones because Catherine Zeta-Jones offers us a great deal or we buy the new Chrysler because Celine Dion drives one. All that is fine as far as pushing commercial products go, but political issues cannot be treated in the same fashion. Decisions on political issues need to be based upon the weighing of facts; not upon a celebrity's status in our popular culture. While no one is denying celebrities the right to speak out, I'm simply urging them to use that right responsibly. Lets not turn political issues into just another product that is pushed onto the American public.

2003-03-12T14:24:00.000-06:00

Well... Revo (formerly Crush), my longtime favorite cover band is no longer. Desiree, the band's lead singer, has decided not to return after taking a maternity leave to deliver her first child. According to the band's website:
"Revo's long time friend and singer Desiree Starr has decided not to return to performing with Revo. She has officially decided to "pursue her own ventures and wishes to thank everyone for all their support and friendships in the past." She can still be contacted through her Revo email address. We wish her all the best in everything she does."
I've heard the replacement singer and to be quite honest, she sucks. As a matter of fact, the whole band sucks. The only thing that band had going for it was Desiree. Man... she could really carry a tune. The fact that she was hot didn't hurt either. Now where am I going to find a new band? I'll probably wind up at some German restaurant listening to the Deutchland Yodelers or something.

2003-03-09T13:34:00.000-06:00

Imagine a movie theater where there is a full bar, a full menu, leather seats, a smoking section, and a waiter to bring you anything you need. Well it really exists! The best part is that you have to be 21 or over to get in (i.e. no teenage pimple-poppers allowed)! It's called Hollywood Blvd. and it's got everything you could ask for in a movie theater. The seating layout is not your traditional layout. You're basically sitting in you own reclinable chair (which rolls around on the floor) and there is a tabletop in front of you for your food & drink. I was able to catch Tears of the Sun there last night and it's a great experience. I'd highly recommend this place to anyone. Movie tickets are only $8 which is actually a dollar cheaper than going to a regular theater. Hopefully this catches on and more of these places open up.

2003-03-09T12:52:00.000-06:00

Meet the new Schueler baby, Julia Michelle. Or "Jumi" as proud parents Dave & Maria like to call her. Apparently, she was born to the sounds of Jimmy Buffett so you know she's going to be a lot of fun. Ain't she cute?

2003-03-07T23:22:00.000-06:00

Whoa... Scrubs star Zach Braff is going to direct and star alongside Natalie Portman in something called Large's Ark. Here's the story:

According to Variety, Camelot Pictures has come aboard to finance Jersey Films' Large's Ark, a romantic drama that marks the feature directorial debut of Scrubs star Zach Braff.
Braff stars in the film alongside Natalie Portman and Ian Holm, with Peter Sarsgaard negotiating to join them.
Braff set the film up at Jersey last fall, based on his own script about a young man who returns home for his mom's funeral after being estranged from his family for a decade.
Braff impressed Portman enough that she agreed to fit the film in before shooting the third "Star Wars" prequel this summer. Large's Ark will begin production April 23 in New Jersey and L.A.

2003-03-07T23:19:00.000-06:00

I'm totally psyched... One of my favorite musicals of all time (2nd only to Les Miserables) may finally be adapted for the big screen:

Joel Schumacher Talks Phantom of the Opera
Friday, March 7, 2003 6:24 CST
The Chicago Sun-Times talked to director Joel Schumacher who addressed rumors that Antonio Banderas is still a frontrunner for Phantom of the Opera. "Antonio is not doing this version," Schumacher said, "I haven't cast yet, but I want to go younger. Maybe Antonio was part of a past project. He was in 'Evita' and Andrew loves him, but he's not my Phantom."
Schumacher is currently prepping the project and thinking about casting. "Not Leo. He's a little young for Phantom, but someone young. The hard thing is that the leads have to sing and act. The other interesting element is you don't see the face under the Phantom mask. He's always in makeup. So, I could cast anyone."
As for the female lead, Schumacher says he's looking for "a beautiful young lady who can sing." The director hopes to have the film out by next Christmas.

2003-03-07T23:09:00.000-06:00

I guess Smallville has come out with a soundtrack. I would recommend it to anyone... particularly Eva Cassidy's rendition of Time After Time (I've always loved that song). If you dont want to buy the soundtrack, then at least go download that track.

2003-03-06T12:29:00.000-06:00

How does this job description sound for me?? If only it were more stable, I'd be there in a heartbeat. I can totally see myself as a caller for the new Miss Cleo commercial.

What We Need:
MovieWork Now Casting needs all ages, types and sizes for upcoming feature films, independent films, made for television movies, commercials, infomercials, music videos, print advertisements, voice-overs and promotional projects. Projects may be for local, national, or international distribution. Applicants should live within one hour of Phoenix in order to meet the demands of casting.

Our Credits:
Our talent has worked on films that include: Skinwalkers, Impostor, Three Kings, Tin Cup, U-Turn, The Postman, Jerry Maguire, Waiting to Exhale, What Planet Are You From?, Interstate 60, Tank Girl, Dead Man, Flirting with Disaster, The Getaway, Boys on the Side, The Quick and the Dead, No Code of Conduct, Terminal Velocity, Bad Girls, The Ride, Hoop Soldiers, Legend, Family Plan, Tombstone and Geronimo.

Our clients include: Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Starburst, AT&T, Glamour Magazine, Sports Illustrated, Americas Most Wanted, Ripley's Believe It Or Not, Details Magazine, Rolling Stones Tour, Back Street Boys Tour, Duracell Batteries, Levis, GM, PetSmart, Oldsmobile, Helzberg Jewelers, Pokeman, Visa, Maxwell House, Sears, Nabisco, Corona Beer, Salon Selectives, WNBA, AWF, Fox Kids Network, CBS College Tour, Cartoon Network Channel, Oz Fest, Pfizer and many more.

Earn up to $1,500.00 Per Day
Flexible Part-Time Work
All Looks and Types Needed
Prior Industry Experience Not Required

2003-03-04T22:29:00.000-06:00

I guess it was too much to ask to make it through all of winter without a major snowfall. But since we've no place to go, let it snow... let it snow... let it snow.

2003-02-28T00:31:00.000-06:00

And they finally cancelled Birds Of Prey. Admittedly, I'd tune in to that show whenever I would catch it. Upon restrospect, the show's writing really left something to be desired. But who doesn't want to watch 3 superheroes who just happen to be super-babes as well?? If they brought back the Wonder-Woman series, I'd be the first in line!

2003-02-28T00:26:00.000-06:00

Okay... this reality-TV thing has sunken yet even lower than The Bachelorette. Apparently Fox is planning a series called Married By America where the contestants will get married to perfect strangers chosen by the viewing public. My call to the American viewer is to set each one of them up with the most god-awful mate possible. That ought to teach 'em...

2003-02-27T19:17:00.000-06:00

Well I'm sitting here trying to figure out how to best live my life, and all I can come up with is the ages-old question. Not "What would Jesus do..." It's more like "What would Gregg do?"

Yeah, that Gregg. He's a smart fucker. If I'd listened to him, I'd be done with an associate's degree, or a novel, or something remotely useful to provide for money. That way I wouldn't be shaking down the managers at McDonalds for a lousy buck and a quarter an hour to mop up toilets and take orders from pimply teenagers...over and behind the counter, that is.

Damn, I should have listened to him. Now all I've got to show for my three-year vacation is a few vacations, a credit card debt and a string of collection agency phone calls. I wish I were taller. I wish I were smarter. I wish I had debonaire. In short, I wish I were like Gregg. "Oh I wish I was a little bit taller...I wish I was a baller...I wish I had a girl who looked good so I could call her..."

(I've got to lay off the booze.)
On second thought, listening to Gregg may prove to be hazardous to my health. It was probably wise not to listen that one time he asked me to go to the Sugar Shack with him on transvestite night. And it was probably best that I didn't tag along when he went out to the "Girls of the Yano-Mano" brothel in Las Vegas. [shudder]

2003-02-26T15:06:00.000-06:00

Saw DareDevil a few days ago and I actually enjoyed it. I went in expecting something cheesy or campy, but it was actually done pretty well. Some plot holes of course, but on the whole not bad at all. The biggest thing going for the movie was the way they showed DareDevil's point of view (very clever indeed). Oh... and Elektra of course was always nice to look at. It's good to see Jennifer Garner in a context other than Alias.

2003-02-26T14:48:00.000-06:00

Watched a little TV last night (what else is new) and the episode of Smallville was one of the best. Clark Kent finally finds out he's from Krypton and who better to break the news to him than Christopher Reeve (who played some sort of scientist). That's not all... apparently he finds out that when Jor-El sent him to Earth, he had intended little baby Kal-El to eventually conquer the Earth. Now I guess we will watch Clark fight the destiny laid out for him by his biological father. Yeah, I probably sound like a nerd but this is good stuff. They're probably rewriting some of the history already established in the comics, but who cares...

2003-02-26T14:06:00.000-06:00

Okay... I know, I know... It's been over 5 months but I'm back to bring you my little nuances of nothingness. Well, I guess the only major update is that I am finally in the job market again. Can you believe I have to find a job!?!? It's gonna be hard to give up this life, but at this point, I can finally use the phrase, "I don't have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of." When I have to pass up trips to both Tahoe and Vegas, something in the world just ain't right. And if making money is the only way to rectify this little problem, then I'd better get crackin'.

2002-09-05T01:24:00.000-05:00

Question: Are Weblogs Changing Our Culture?
The only blog capable of changing culture is this one here. Who else is better at telling you the way things ought to be better than me. For instance, it ought to be illegal for women with a spare tire bigger than mine to wear skin tight tops. Now that I've laid down the law, our culture should be changing for the better any day now.

2002-08-15T12:37:00.000-05:00

Autobots... Transform and roll out!

I found the Transformers complete first season on DVD. Now I have to endlessly debate with myself whether or not to buy it. Regardless, everyone should take the Autobot quiz.
I turned out to be Ironhide myself.

2002-08-15T12:29:00.000-05:00

New title courtesy of one DiggerBlue... I have to admit, it's pretty damn clever.

2002-08-08T12:23:00.000-05:00

I didn't realize that Paint Your Wagon was an actual movie starring Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood. Now whether or not they break into song and dance is a different story.

2002-08-05T18:33:00.000-05:00

Tarantino fans... There's a new Collector's Edition of Pulp Fiction coming out on DVD soon. Personally, I'm looking forward to the deleted scenes and the Tarantino interview. Here are the rest of the features:
• Region 1 encoding (US and Canada only)
• Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Dolby
• Production notes
• Deleted Scenes
• Pulp Fiction: The Facts Original Documentary
• Pulp Fiction Still Gallery
• Behind-The-Scenes Montages
• Production Design Featurette
• Siskel & Ebert "At The Movies" - "The Tarantino Generation"
• Cannes Film Festival - Palm d'Or Acceptance Speech
• Charlie Rose Show - Interview with Quentin Tarantino
• Theatrical Trailers
• 13 TV Spots
• Reviews and Articles
• Widescreen anamorphic format
• Number of discs: 2

2002-07-22T14:07:00.000-05:00

Vacation Day 9
Saturday, July 6th:

The last day of a very long trip seemed to go by in the blink of an eye. We knew Little Reed wanted to do things other than gambling today, so we tried to find some alternative forms of entertainment between gambling sessions. After lunch, we went up to the top of the Eiffle Tower and got a bird's-eye view of the strip. We even saw the Bellagio fountain show from up there but we were too high to hear the music. All things considered, this was really a waste of money because you're basically paying $9 for a view of the strip. After that, we walked over to Treasure Island to see the free pirate show out front. Of all the times I've been to Vegas (I think 6 or 7 times), this was actually the first time I've seen this show and it's pretty good for a free show with all the pyro-technics they use. I wouldn't have classified the wind that day as anything more than a gentle breeze, but I guess out in the desert, it's considered a windstorm because the show almost was cancelled because of it. It's got live actors running around their ships, things are exploding, fire is burning, and one of the ships actually sinks. The show was only about 5 minutes long, but it was entertaining. Earlier that day, we had gotten tickets to the Blue Man Group show (at Luxor) and by the time we walked back, it was almost curtain time. The show was actually better than I expected it to be. It's hard to classify the show into anything because it really varies. There's music, comedy, visual art, and some audience participation as we all got T-P'ed with huge rolls of paper. I guess if you had to pick one, it would be music as everything was underscored by it. After the Blue Man show, it was about 11PM and we were starving by this point so we grabbed a steak dinner for $7.95. Only in Vegas could you get a meal like that for such a price. We had a plane out of Vegas the following morning at 7AM which meant we had to be at the airport by 5:30AM. We'd all decided that sleeping wouldn't be worth it, so we gambled into the wee hours of the morning until it was time to go to the airport.

So that was the gist of the trip. Although I do love going to Las Vegas, I'd have to say that the very best parts of this whole trip came out in California where I shot the best round of golf in my life, had a great time at Disneyland, and I got to play the Who Wants To Be A Millioniare game at California Adventures. Now, where the destination for the next one? Maybe a ski resort in Colorado? We'll have to see...

2002-07-19T23:49:00.000-05:00

Vacation Day 8
Friday, July 5th:

I came damn close to winning $11,000 this day, but it was not to be. I had an 8-game parlay bet on baseball and nailed all but one of the games. If the fricking Yankees would have won that day, I would have had that 11G's in my pocket. We'd spent much of the day sitting in various sportsbooks watching the baseball games with our fingers crossed. The great part is that the cocktail waitresses kept coming around handing out free drinks so we were all feeling pretty tipsy by dinnertime. Other than the baseball games, the rest of the day was spent mostly at the tables. Well... for Big Reed and myself anyway. I think Little Reed is intimidated by the table games so he wouldn't go near them. He did play a few slot machines, but not very many. I'm sure he was getting very bored waiting for us while we were busy doubling down and splitting aces. If I had to guess, I'd say Las Vegas would not be Little Reed's first choice in a vacation destination the next time. You could tell he was getting annoyed with all the gambling we were doing. At this point in the trip, we had been living in such close quarters with each other that I'm starting to get a little irritable too and the littlest things begin to aggravate me. Happens with everyone I go on vacation with so it's not just these two. That and the fact that I haven't been getting too much sleep in Las Vegas (probably an average of 5 hours per night) doesn't help much either. Good thing there is only one more day on this trip and then I get to sleep in my own bed again. (...to be concluded)

2002-07-18T23:39:00.000-05:00

Vacation Day 7
Thursday, July 4th:

The saga continues... I placed my first legal bet on a sporting event today when I took about 8 baseball games. I happen to win 6 of them so there was a small profit to be made (only around $25 I think). The rest of the day was mostly more casino exploring and the gambling that comes with it. Here's the list:
- Bellagio (lost about $50)
- Paris (won about $50)
- Aladdin (lost about $100)
- Caesar's Palace (lost about $100)
- Mirage (lost about $100)
- Treasure Island (won about $100)

After all that lost money (about $200 for the day), it was time for dinner so we went to the second best buffet in town at the Bellagio. They were having a special 4th of July dinner so they had all kinds of good stuff laid out. It's really the only thing that reminded us that it was the 4th of July because there were no fireworks or anything (none that we saw anyway). We capped the night with something we refer to as simply "entertainment." Let your imaginations run wild.
(...to be continued) Dont's worry, there's only 2 days of vacation rehashing left.

2002-07-16T23:21:00.000-05:00

Vacation Day 6
Wednesday, July 3rd:

This was the day that we moved the party from L.A. to Las Vegas. Something which I hesitate to broadcast, we actually reenacted the Swingers scene and started shouting "Vegas!!" when we started the drive. And true to script, we were mumbling "Vegas" near the end of the drive. It was about a 4 hour trip which could have been shorter, but Big Reed is kind of a slow driver. At least we got there in one piece though.

When we got there, we checked into the Monte Carlo and then ditched the rental car because you really don't need one in Vegas. There are a bunch of trams that go from casino to casino and everything is pretty much within walking distance. Since this was the Reed's first trip to Las Vegas, they wanted to check out all the different casinos so we went exploring a few of them right off the bat. I think we went to New York-New York, MGM Grand, Excaliber, and Luxor on the first day. After we checked those out (and lost some money in the process), we headed out to the Rio for the best buffet in town. While we were there, we also caught the Sky-Parade where they throw out free beads (a la Mardi Gras) to the crowd. We managed to catch a few strands for free souvenirs.

After the Rio, we went looking for a bar and ended up in New York-New York where they had Coyote Ugly modeled after the movie. Having seen the movie, I had in mind what to expect but when we walked in there it was rather disappointing. The place was so small that people were basically elbow to elbow and I absolutely hate places like that. There were, however, some extremely attractive women-bartenders dancing on the bartops... but after 20 minutes or so, the novelty soon wore off. They also gave away free shots which they poured directly in your mouth (true to the movie) but they were really weak and tasted just like Gatorade. We probably only spent about 1 1/2 hours there and only that long because we had paid a $10 cover charge to get in. We called it a night after that... looking forward to the next day's adventures. (...to be continued)

2002-07-15T22:53:00.000-05:00

Vacation Day 5
Tuesday, July 2nd:

Woke up and headed out to the driving range in the morning. They even gave you free coffee and donuts when you got a bucket so there was our breakfast. After Little Reed was ready to go, we hopped back on the free shuttle and went to Disney's Califonia Adventure theme park. I had never been to this one as it's relatively new, so I was rather excited to check it out.

Just like at Disneyland, they also had the ingenius FastPass system so getting on all of the rides that we wanted wasn't a problem. We even made it in to see most of the shows in their Hollywood Pictures Backlot area (kind of like a mini-Universal Studios). This is also the area where we ate dinner in the "Soap Opera Bistro." Apparently, they've recreated the sets to multiple soap operas and the waiters & waitresses are in character as well. Not that I would know the difference, but the Reeds were taking lots of pictures in their for their soap-addicted mother.

The best part of the day was when we went to go see the "Who Wants To Be A Millioniare" show. They've created a set that looks exactly like the one on TV, complete with hostess. I forget the hostess' name but she was definitely funnier than Regis on his best day. Anyway, how the show works is that the audience gets to play along by using the answer buttons in front of their seats. Whoever gets the most answers right in the least amount of time, gets to go up and sit in the hotseat. Guess who got to sit in the hotseat... That's right, yours truly. When I got up there she asked me to introduce my friends and as soon as I did, she proceeded to rip on Little Reed from which the audience exploded in laughter. I'm sure Little Reed was quite embarrased as he turned brighter red than I've ever seen him. As to how I did in the hotseat, I only made it up to the 1000 point question. If only it would have been exactly like it is on TV, I would have won $1000, but as it was, I only walked away with a free baseball cap and a couple of souvenir pins. I would have made it further, but I had a brain fart on an easy question. Not to mention I might have been a bit nervous in front of the 300+ audience members. Still, it was the best fun of the vacation thus far.

Here are all the attractions we experienced at Disney's California Adventure:

RIDES
- California Screamin' - Definitely the best rollercoaster in the state of California. Instead of the traditional climb to the top, this thing shot you like a bullet right out of the gates.
- Maliboomer - Kind of like the giant drop, but this one shoots you at incredible force straight up to the top and then drops you.
- Mulholland Madness - A kiddie coaster that recreates all the twists and turns of the real Mulholland Drive.
- Sun Wheel - A modified ferris wheel where each car slides on it's own track within the wheel. We made the mistake of going on this after dinner and it's actually kind of nauseating.
- Soarin' Over California - This is a motion simulator that makes you feel like you're flying (a la Superman) right over the many different landmarks of California.
- Grizzly River Run - I just don't seem to have much luck with water rides. Once again... guess who is the most wet at the end of the ride.

SHOWS
- Disney Animation shows - A series of short shows (both film and live action) that teaches us how animation is done.
- Blast (Hyperion Theater) - A show that sort of emulates Blue Man Group. It's only about 30 minutes long, but pretty enjoyable.
- Jim Henson's Muppet*Vision 3D - Yes, the Muppets are still cool in this 3D show that combines live action with the screen.
- Who Want's To Be A Millionaire - A recreation of the television game show that gives the audience members a chance to play. More details up top.

(...to be continued)

2002-07-14T23:12:00.000-05:00

Vacation Day 4
Monday, July 1st:

Got up pretty early today (7AM) because we were going to Disneyland and we knew it would be an extra 2 hours for Little Reed to get ready. During our usual wait, we found a nearby driving range and hit a couple buckets of balls. Turns out it's a great way to get the blood flowing and start off the day. After that, we took the free shuttle from our hotel and were off to Disneyland. The last time I was at Disneyland would have been 1985 (I think) when we were on a huge family trip with grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. I remember waiting in lots of lines and that was my biggest fear this time as we walked through the gates. These days, they have an ingenius thing called the FastPass which lets you cut ahead about 90% of the line so on most of the rides, we only had to wait about 10 minutes to get on. How it works is: you have to get your FastPass ticket near the ride and it prints out a time when you can return and cut in line. For example, at 10AM we got a FastPass ticket for Space Mountain and the ticket said we could return between 11:30AM and 12:30PM in order to cut in line. Whoever came up with the idea for FastPass is a genius because it allowed us to get on all the rides we wanted to in record time. We had so much time, that we actually went on some of the better ones twice. Here are the rides we made it on:
- Indiana Jones Adventure (2X): It's a bumpy offroad type of ride that can get dangerous. You even get chased by the big boulder!
- Jungle Cruise (2X): Just a relaxing boat ride with a bunch of animitronic animals in the water. The boat driver made some good jokes though.
- Tarzan's Treehouse: We were just trying to kill time. But there is a bit of a surprise at the top.
- Haunted Mansion: A Disney staple. The ride actually stopped for a few minutes so were were trapped in there with a bunch of ghosts.
- Pirates of the Caribbean (2X): A relaxing ride (most of the way) while you watch the pirates do their thing.
- Splash Mountain - Why am I always the one who gets the most wet on these rides?
- Big Thunder Mountain Railroad - A big coaster that splashes through water at the end but thankfully no one gets wet.
- Mark Twain Riverboat - A huge riverboat that gently circles Disneyland.
- Space Mountain - This has to be the best ride at Disneyland. This coaster takes you at extreme speeds through pitch blackness so you have no idea what to expect!
- Star Tours (2X) - C-3PO launches you on a ride that puts you right in the middle of a battle between the Alliance and the Empire!
- Matterhorn Bobsleds - This coaster whizzed us right by the likes of Sasquatch!
- Mr. Toad's Wild Ride - Not really that wild as it was a ride for little kiddies.
- Snow White's Scary Adventures - Hey, it was right after lunch so we needed to digest a little.

The evening was topped off with a wonderfully choreographed fireworks display which takes you back to being a kid. I have to admit, I love Disneyland. As a matter of fact, it's probably the best reason to visit the L.A. area. (...to be continued)

2002-07-13T01:03:00.000-05:00

Vacation Day 3
Sunday, June 30th:

Today, the first order of business was to change hotels to one closer to the Disney parks. Big Reed does a lot of traveling for his job and had acquired enough reward points for 3 free nights at the Anaheim Hilton Garden Inn. The price was right so we switched hotels. After we got things squared away there, we drove about 2 hours down to San Diego for a visit to their "world famous" zoo. I had already been there a couple times before and the last time was only about 2 years ago so I wasn't too terribly excited. The Reed's had never been there so they wanted to check it out. Unfortunately, the zoo would prove to be a disappointment as the animals seemed to be in some sort of coma that day. Most just slept the day away in their exhibits, not giving us too much to look at. The fact that the zoo is huge and full of steep hills made it that much more unpleasant as the walking really drained our energy quick. After the zoo, we headed over to Historic Old Town for dinner. It was reputed to have the best Mexican food this side of the border and thankfully, the food did live up to it's reputation so the trip down to San Diego was not all lost. A quiet car ride back to the hotel and it was lights out. So far, golf is still the highlight of this trip. (...to be continued)

2002-07-12T02:14:00.000-05:00

Vacation Day 2
Saturday, June 29th:

Woke up at about 8AM and got ready in about 20 minutes. Little Reed on the other hand, needs about 2 hours in the morning to get ready. Don't ask me what he does in there because I don't know and I think it will forever remain a mystery. I remember back in college that he would be in the washroom getting ready when you left for class... and when you got back from class, he would still be in there. Anyways, we killed the time by going down to the breakfast buffet (which we got for free with our stay) and checking out the grounds a bit.

Tangent: Apparently, Big Reed had forgotten to pack his socks so we had to go to the mall to get him some. Good thing we did because I found a great ski jacket on clearance for about $30. The original price on this thing was $140 so I thought I got a smoking deal.

After Little Reed was finally ready to go, we went for a boat tour of the bay that was a complete waste of time. The only thing I took out of that was a bit of sunburn and a lesson learned. Supposedly on the boat cruise, they were suppose to point out "celebrity" homes, but their idea of celebrities included the founder of Mott's Apple Sauce, John Wayne's old girlfriend, and the guy who owned the Quik-E-Mart down the road. Not quite the A-listers of Hollywood. Oh well...

We went back to the hotel and played 18 holes at the golf course that we had such a great view of from our room. Most definitely, I had the best round of my life. At one point I had 4 pars in a row and was kicking some major butt. Now I'm almost ready for the pro tour. Certainly the high point of the trip thus far. After golf we went to a Greek restaurant for dinner and did the whole flaming cheese thing and all. A swim in the hotel pool capped the night and it was off to bed. (...to be continued)

2002-07-11T03:26:00.000-05:00

Quick movie news:
Batman vs. Superman in a live action, big budget movie? Can it be true?
Article

2002-07-11T02:56:00.000-05:00

Vacation Day 1
Friday, June 28th:

Had an 8AM flight out of O'Hare and seeing as how I was basically on no sleep, I was looking forward to a nice 4 hour nap on the plane ride. Unfortunately, my hopes for that were quickly dashed when I watched a frustrated father drag a couple of his obnoxious kids into the seats in front of us. Right away, they were bouncing around in their seats and making all kinds of ruckus which would last the entire 4 hours of the flight. It was so bad that when the drinks came around, I couldn't even put it down on my tray table else I have it spilled all over my lap. If that weren't enough, the troublemaker directly in front of me kept standing up and turning around in his seat giving me a great view of the dripping snot out of his nose. Please... If I ever want to have kids, someone do me a favor and kick some sense into me.

So we finally get off the plane of the damned and make our way to the hotel. I was actually kind of looking forward to it because when we booked the trip, we were told that this was a top rated resort with all the amenities and especially balconies in the rooms overlooking the golf course. When we get to our room, we find out it's worse than the roadside motel I once stayed at during the legendary walk. This place was truly a dump and the topper was it had no balcony. We decided we would bitch and moan to management until they finally caved in and gave us the room we were promised in a different building. This time we got our balcony and the room was also 10 times cleaner than the last one.

Just when we think everything is starting to turn around, dinner proves to be a nightmare. We went to Joe's Crab Shack and the wait was more than 2 hours long. We would have gotten the hell out of there, but typical of California, we had just spent $5 to valet the car. Apparently self-parking isn't even an option in California because everywhere we went it was valet only. Is it that difficult to walk a few steps further? I guess they don't need the exercise out there because when we got in the restaurant (and I noticed this in restaurants all over California), we found that about 8 out of 10 tables all order salads for their meals. Now why would you go to a "crab shack" and then order a salad? Men, women, and children alike were all ordering salads which I found rather peculiar. Anyways, we didn't get out of there until about 11PM (1AM Chicago time) and seeing as how I've had no sleep that day, it was time to call it a night. Wrote off day 1 as a bust and was out like a light as soon as I hit that pillow. (...to be continued)

2002-07-10T01:41:00.000-05:00

Another note worth mentioning...
Apparently, there will be a Doors reunion concert. Obviously Jim Morrisson will need to be replaced and it looks like it will be Ian Astbury to step into his shoes.

2002-07-10T01:35:00.000-05:00

Hmmm... it's been a while since the last post. I could say that I've been too busy, but we all know that would be a complete lie. Truth be told, I've just been blowing it off for about a month and a half so deal with it.

Last I checked, I was blogging something about looking for a job. Well, the search continues. So nothing new on that front. Just got back from a trip to California and Las Vegas with the Reed Brothers and while Big Reed was quite pleasant throughout the trip, Little Reed did start to hit a few raw nerves from time to time especially on those last few days. But I'll tell you about the vacation another time (maybe tomorrow). First, I have to look over my trip journal notes so I can recall all the highlights.

The day before I left for the trip, I was able to make it up to Summerfest for a Sheryl Crow concert which was great. Made it up there at about 2PM with Matt & we got to cruise all over Summerfest since it was an evening concert. We got to catch ComedySportz which was some good improv and a bunch of small bands on the side stages while we waited for the Sheryl show. The concert itself was spectacular and the audience was on it's feet the whole time. Everytime I've seen Sheryl Crow in concert she manages to pull off a great show. We had so much fun that we're going back to her Tinley Park concert on August 11th. It's the day after Dale's wedding so I'm not sure what condition I'll be in that day, but I'll probably make it. After the concert was over, there was a Heart concert immediately after on another stage. After listening for about an hour, I discovered that Heart sucks live. I think I'll stick to their greatest hits album. We didn't get home till about 3AM that morning and seeing as how I had to be at the airport by 6AM, I only got about 30 minutes of sleep so it made for a very long flight to California. (...to be continued)

2002-05-14T02:04:00.000-05:00

The search continues... Another 6 hours of mind-numbing searches through the Monster.com database can't be good for one's mental agility. This must be what drives people to alcoholism. I think I have to figure out a way to appeal to the job gods and maybe they'll throw me a job as a beer-taster. Not bloody likely... Oh well... at least I got my Dave Matthews tickets in the mail today. It's a small reward for this job search torture.

2002-05-07T03:14:00.000-05:00

The job search officially began today and it really sucks. I spent about 6 hours of valuable TV watching time and rummaged through the Chicago Tribune website for a job that suited me. I ran search after search for words like "database," "business analyst," and "telecommunications." Each one returned hundreds of matches, but they were mostly jobs that I'm not qualified for. After all that work looking through them, I think I only found about 6 or 7 that I sent resumes to. Did I mention how much this sucks? I hate looking for a job. Tomorrow, I think it's on to either Jobs.com or Monster.com. Maybe I'll go see a movie first just to get into the job searching mood.

2002-04-24T00:36:00.000-05:00

Okay so I haven't been here for a while. I've been hooked on a new video game (Spec Ops 2: Green Berets) and I'm trying to complete my missions. In other words, I've been busy getting frustrated and punching the computer screen. I think I'm getting the hang of it though. Other than that I'm still at the movies and other routine things. Here's a joke for now (courtesy of RandomJoke.com) until I have something to write about:

Man to God: "God, why did you make woman so beautiful?"

God to Man: "So you would love her."

"But God", Man says, "why did you make her so dumb?"

God replies: "So she would love you."

2002-04-15T15:35:00.000-05:00

It's 87º outside today and it's April. Did we skip spring and go directly to summer? I think I'm going to the driving range to hit a couple of buckets.

2002-04-14T22:05:00.000-05:00

Went out for some golf for the first time this season and I think I managed to shake the rust off rather quickly. I beat the 2 Reed brothers and I think I'm coming out of my slump that I ended last season with. It's good to be golfing again. I just need a little more practice.

2002-04-12T18:50:00.000-05:00

Quick movie bits:

Superman Lives! has been greenlit. Supposedly it is to be helmed by Charlie's Angels director, McG. The responsibility of the script writing has been handed over to J.J. Abrams who recently gave us a great tv series in Alias.
Quote from Abrams:
"What’s nice is that after a lot of years of trying to get this going and not succeeding, everyone’s coming at it with a very fresh, open mind. What’s exciting for me is that we’ve got some incredible, really big ideas that go beyond just the one story we’re telling. ALIAS has actually been an amazing training ground for me. In this Superman we’re talking a lot about where he’s come from and where he’s going. I can’t talk about specifics, but I can tell you that there are a lot of exciting, big ideas. I think it’s Superman for everyone and not just for people who already know the character. It’s for the uninitiated."

Akira is reportedly set to be remade led by Stephen Norrington (the same guy who brought us Blade).

Spiderman 2 is already becoming reality according to Sam Raimi.
Quote from Raimi:
"I've just signed on to do Spider-Man 2 actually. We haven't yet got a story so I haven't actually thought about what actors I'll use though. I love Spider-Man. I'm into him. And Bruce Campbell will have a role in Spider-Man 2 as well."

X-Files 2 has been touched on by creator Chris Carter though it's still a ways off.
Carter quote:
"I hope to write it over the summer, prep it over the fall and spring, and shoot it late spring and next summer. I think you would end up seeing it in 2004... I have rough ideas and I'm sort of deciding what to do."

Fantastic Four is being co-written by Hollywood vet, Chris Columbus.
Quote from producer Avi Arad:
"We are developing a script; I think we now have a real interesting take. We'll just have to delay the anniversary just a little bit to coincide with the movie. It's a very big movie, but you don't serve one before it's time. With the spectacular forward movement in CGI, all of a sudden FF is doable and finally coming together. It's going to be awesome."

2002-04-09T17:53:00.000-05:00

Matt and I tried to get into the No Doubt concert on Saturday night but due to our lack of foresight, we weren't able to secure any tickets in advance. We found ourselves walking back and forth in front of the Aragon Ballroom looking for a scalper who would sell us tickets for a reasonable price. As luck wouldn't have it, we couldn't even find one single scalper. Usually when we go to concerts, there are scalpers left and right looking to illegally pawn off their goods. Apparently, this No Doubt concert was so popular that we weren't the only ones looking for last minute tickets either. Several other groups actually approached us and asked if we had any tickets for sale. They would casually come up to us and whisper, "We need tickets." I guess we look like scalpers. In any event, we weren't able to get into the show. However, there was another alternative right around the corner at the Riviera. Big Head Todd and the Monsters were playing and we thought that it would make a great consolation prize. But they were sold out as well and our quest to secure tickets for that show also resulted in failure. So two would-have-been great concerts on Saturday night, neither of which we could get into. What's this world coming to where a man can't illegally purchase tickets at the last minute. We ended up going to the Division bar scene and bar-hopped all night so the evening was not lost. Even ran into a few bachelorette parties which made the trip downtown all worth it.

2002-04-03T14:20:00.000-06:00

Found a great 80's site complete with sound files of TV show themes. They've even got downloadable video games. I spent 3 hours last night playing Q-Bert & Burger Time!
http://www.tripletsrus.com/80s/index.htm

2002-04-02T01:15:00.000-06:00

I had a strange encounter at the post office today. There I was, standing in line as usual and I noticed in front of me was this Asian man nodding his head at me, looking like he was hard up for some conversation. What were my options? I could ignore him... but then I would have to stand in line with him for the next 10 (uncomfortable) minutes. I could pretend like I was lost and make a dash for the door... but then why did I have an armful of packages? I decided I would at least quickly nod back to acknowledge his obvious attempts to grab my attention. I had hoped it would end with that but he went on to introduce himself and then dive immediately into his line of business which he said was some sort of internet business. "What do you do?" he asked. Being caught off guard, I didn't have a typical George Costanza line ready and I accidently blurted out the truth. "I'm between work right now" I responded. "That's great" he said. Now I was wondering why in the world he thought that was great. "I'm involved with this internet business," he went on, "and the field is growing rapidly. There's a huge potential in the internet market and someone like you could do great in it." Right then I knew that I was being pitched with some sort of scheme (like selling AmWay on the internet or something). I continued to nod my head politely and he kept going on and on about this business. What does this guy take me for? Some kind of chump who will fall for this little scheme of his, I guess. "Tell you what," he continued, "Why don't you and I get together for some coffee later and I can tell you a little more about it." Was he serious? He expected me to meet him for coffee later? Get real. I couldn't believe it... right here in the middle of the post office, someone is trying to get me to jump on board their crazy scheme. No way was I going to get involved in this stranger's little business adventure. I didn't even know this guy and here he is going on about all the money I could make and meeting him for coffee. He gave me his card and then went on to ask me for my number so we could set up that coffee thing. I started to write it down on an old Aerial business card of mine but this time I was prepared and I fudged the last two digits so he would be calling the wrong number. We finally made it up to the front of the line and it was his turn at the counter. "So I'll probably see you later tonight for that coffee" he said. I responded with a less than enthusiastic grunt. Now I just hope that I don't run into him again because I go to that post office alot. Maybe I should start using the Elgin post office just to be safe.

2002-03-31T22:00:00.000-06:00

A little personal experiment... I've been spending the weekend trying to deprive myself of all the distractions that I've become accustomed to. TV, movies, and internet use have been kept to a minimum. Instead, I read Jewel's latest book, Chasing Down the Dawn and The Chosen (which Gregg lent me). The whole process was actually quite refreshing without all the external "noise" that I'm use to. I should try to do this at least once a month.

2002-03-28T01:23:00.000-06:00

Just found out that I missed a big Revo (formerly known as Crush) gig. Apparently they were opening for Firehouse at a bar in Elgin last Friday and had I known, I probably would have went. I was out of town when they opened for Warrant in that very same bar about a month ago. I think I'm gonna need to listen to some Wuss Rock as a consolation prize.

2002-03-27T21:25:00.000-06:00

Sad news in the entertainment industry. Milton Berle and Dudley Moore are no longer with us. Milton Berle was a little before my time but I particularly remember watching Dudley Moore movies when I was a kid. 10 and Arthur specifically made me laugh my arse off. Nobody could play/be the drunken fool like he could... Cheers.

2002-03-26T18:52:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I felt like I woke up in a parallel universe or something. Everything just seemed to be a tad different. Traffic lights that were usually red were green. People who were at the gym were different (more attractive) than the regulars who I usually saw. Different people were working there as well. I didn't go to the movies on a Monday like I usually do. There was no line at the post office. I started to hear the theme to The Twilight Zone, only this universe was good. Most of the things that seemed different were actually improvements. Maybe tomorrow, the universe will be even better...

2002-03-24T13:21:00.000-06:00

Quote of the day:
"Libertarians and Republicans treat everyday like it's the 4th of July. Communists and Democrats treat everyday like it's the 15th of April."

2002-03-21T13:07:00.000-06:00

The only movies on my to see list now are Ice Age and Blade 2 (which opens tomorrow). That is unless I can find a 2nd run theater still playing Kung Pow but I think I might have to wait for the DVD. Somemovies come and go like the wind and that was one of them. I'm off to the gym and them to bowling. I smell a 250 game coming.

2002-03-19T01:05:00.000-06:00

I just got my new ID card for the gym today. On it, it says that it's valid until 3/11/03. Funny because I didn't pay for the renewal yet. I think the nice old man who works there just gave me a year's membership for free. All I have to do is listen to his stories that start with, "In my day..." or "When I was your age..." I guess it's worth it if he's gonna give me a year membership for free.

2002-03-18T23:49:00.000-06:00

Added some more movies to the movie page & so did Gregg.

Speaking of movies, some quick movie news:

Title for the next Bond movie has been announced and it's Die Another Day. Reminds me of a line in another movie that goes something like, "Today is not a good day to die." I can't place the movie though and it's going to drive me nuts until I figure it out.

Looks like they are seriously considering somebody to succeed Edward Furlong for the role of John Conner in the next Terminator movie. His name is Shane West which I know nothing about. Other T3 news is that Stan Winston will again do the effects work.

Uma Thurman, Warren Beatty, Lucy Lui, and Darryl Hannah have all been cast in Tarantino's next project, Kill Bill. Apparently they're still waiting on Uma Thurman to give birth before they can start filming. They better give her some time to lose those pregnancy pounds too.

Alien 5 is looking as it will become a reality soon. Reportedly, Sigourney Weaver has convinced Ridley Scott to join the project. Ridley Scott then brought James Cameron aboard so it should be a pretty good movie should they decide to make it. I wasn't particularly impressed with Alien Resurrection so here's another chance for them to go out on a high note.

Peter Jackson is apparently going to release a preview for the LOtR: The Two Towers on March 29th. Supposedly he will re-release Fellowship into theaters and then attach the new preview for it. I've definitely got to get a glimpse at that next movie.

2002-03-13T14:45:00.000-06:00

2 more movies yesterday. Each summed up in one syllable.
I Am Sam - Ehhh
Queen of the Damned - Yuk

At least I Am Sam had some good Beatles tunes in it. Queen of the Damned just outright sucked.

2002-03-11T20:06:00.000-06:00

Got a haircut today and demanded that I get the Mr. T mohawk but the stylist wouldn't agree to it. She kept saying that it went out of style years ago so I settled on the standard cut. Maybe when it comes back into style I can get one.

Another thing that's been on my mind all day is a bit of Superman mythology that was contradicted in the 2nd movie. Supposedly it took Clark Kent his whole childhood to get used to his powers. Then why when the Kryptonian villians came to Earth were they immediately able to control their powers? Hmmm....

I also downloaded the latest Episode II trailer and it's really cool. We get to see glimpses of many Jedi in a huge battle. Go download it if you can wait about 2 hours on a standard-modem connection.

2002-03-10T14:37:00.000-06:00

I watched the Rock Star DVD yesterday and it made me realize just how much I miss 80's metal. The ficticious band, "Steel Dragon" actually had some good songs in the movie. I guess Mark Wahlberg's singing voice actually belonged to Michael Matijevic of Steelheart. Everyone should see the movie and then go buy Wuss Rock.

2002-03-09T20:04:00.000-06:00

Quick updates:

Saw Monster's Ball on Thursday and it wasn't all the critics cracked it up to be. The only thing that stood out was Halle Berry's performance (and no, it wasn't because she got naked).

Yesterday was my grandfather's birthday so we drove into Chinatown to have a celebration dinner. I do love those big chinese dinners.

I recently watched the Terminator 2: Ultimate Edition DVD which was really cool because they've actually inserted many of the deleted scenes into the movie. They blend seamlessly too so if you were watching the movie for the first time, you'd think they belong there.

I just watched the Dark Crystal today and it's not what I remember from when I watched it as a kid. I remember a really cool movie but when I rewatched it today, it just seemed to move really slow and the story seemed a bit stupid. Oh well... I guess it goes up on Half.com now.

2002-03-07T00:13:00.000-06:00

Went to see John Q today and was kind of disappointed. I just don't care too much for somebody trying to stuff their message down my throat. In this case, it was the evils of HMO's and the ineffectiveness of the American healthcare system. It's not that I mind the message so much because they're probably right, but it's that they feel the need to clobber me over the head with it. This is a movie after all and it is supposed to be entertaining. Other than the movie, I went out to bowling today and didn't do quite so well. Maybe I need to go to bowling school or something. Or I could get a job as a pin monkey.

2002-03-05T23:39:00.000-06:00

Made it back to the movies today for the first time in a while and saw We Were Soldiers. Haven't got a review yet but I'll do that next. I did manage to add Hart's War though (finally about 3 weeks now after the initial viewing). I also made it back to the gym for the first time since before my vacation. I stepped on the scale and to my surprise I lost weight without doing anything for 3 weeks. Probably loss of muscle though because I haven't been lifting weights for a while. I'm at about 225 lbs which is down approximately 20 lbs from my original weight. I can't figure it out though because I don't look much different than from when I started. Maybe the 20 lbs came out of my brain instead.

2002-03-03T23:34:00.000-06:00

Went snowboarding for the first time since Arizona. I didn't even know Villa Olivia existed till last week and the great thing is it's only about 5 minutes from my house. The Reed Brothers came up to my house around 2PM and we were off. Of course it had to be the coldest day of the year when we went. I think the temperature was only in the single digits today but we survived. They rented their skis and immediately were having problems. They didn't get 5 feet before wiping out but I guess that's to be expected on their first time out. Hell, on my first time, I only made it about 10 feet before wiping out. Today though, I didn't fall all too much. The only bad thing was that there wasn't a chair lift for the easy runs but instead, they had this stupid contraption they called a tow rope. You're suppose to hang on to this thing while it pulls you up but it's totally harder than it looks. I think I fell more times while being towed up than I did on the way down. Even little kids were starting to give me pointers on how to hold on to the tow rope as they went by. At first, I had to hike all the way back up the hill before I got the hang of the tow rope. The Reeds signed up for a ski lesson which helped them out a little I think because they can get further than 5 feet now. We stayed for about 5 or 6 hours which was long enough to get pretty bruised up from all the falling. Besides that, the snow was icing over so it was getting hard to control my board. Hopefully, I'll be able to go one more time before it starts getting warm out. Winter is good for something after all... Who knew?

2002-03-02T11:38:00.000-06:00

Met up with Dave and his gang yesterday. I haven't actually hung out with these guys for months. We started off with some friendly poker at Dave's house where I won about $3 on the night. Not bad since I've walked away from previous poker games down about $80 or so. So that means I'm only down $77 on the whole now... so that's alot better. Afterwards, we headed over to Dave and Buster's to continue boozing ourselves up. We played shuffleboard, which I sucked at and lost just about every game I played. Thankfully, we moved over to a pool table where I won 4 out of the 5 games I played (hustler that I am). When we got outside, the snow was already coming down pretty hard so it was a fun drive home, slipping and sliding all the way. I hate driving in snow unless it's in a big empty parking lot and I can do donuts. Otherwise, it's a major pain in the butt.

2002-03-02T11:24:00.000-06:00

Well... after my previous rant, the guy seems to have changed his rating of me back to a 5 out of 5. His revised comments: "Movie is in excellent condition I highly recommend buying grom this seller." He must have got a telepathic bad vibe from me and felt compelled to give me a better rating. Since that's the case, he's not a dumbass anymore and he doesn't have to kiss my butt.

2002-03-01T14:56:00.000-06:00

Some dumbass gave me my first less than perfect rating on Half.com. He gave me a 4 out of 5 because the post office screwed up. His exact comments: "movie was damaged during shipping but is playable. It might have been shipped better in some tye of box, but it was mostly the u.s post office that was to blame. I would buy from again." How in the world can I get blamed for something the post office did? Fact of the matter is, everybody who sells on Half.com uses bubble mailers and not boxes. This guy can kiss my butt.

2002-02-28T23:50:00.000-06:00

Everyone finally has their car back including me so I met up with Dale for our weekly bowling excursion. There was a great deal going on at the bowling alley that said Wednesdays & Thursdays were $6.99 for 2 hours of bowling. The only problem was that the deal didn't start until after 9PM. I was, however, able to use my good looks and charm to talk the lady into making an exception for us. She gave us the 2 hours for $6.99 and we were able to fit in 7 games in those 2 hours. It's a good thing we bowled 7 games too (as opposed to our standard 4 games) because on game #6, I managed to bowl the game of my life with a 243. A while back, I promised myself I would get a spare ball after I broke 200 for the first time so I guess that's what I'm gonna have to do. I'm torn between the Mystery Men skull ball and a beer ball. Which one to get??
OR

2002-02-27T14:34:00.000-06:00

I've been trapped in my house for a while as I don't have a car this week. Apparently my aunt's car is in the shop so my dad lent her his car. My dad needed to get to work this week, so I lent him my car. So where does that leave me? Stuck in the house and missing a lot lot movies I've been wanting to see at the theater. I haven't even been able to get back in the gym yet. This is like house arrest. If it were the summer, I could at least go outside and go jogging or something but this brisk air won't allow for that. At least it's cold enough to go snowboarding this weekend. I finally found one thing that winter is good for.

2002-02-25T01:44:00.000-06:00

Late bowling update... I bowled about a 160 average on Wednesday over 5 games. Dale on the other hand found himself in a slump all night and couldn't get his game on track. Usually, it's the other way around. I'm shooting for 200 this Wednesday.

Went out with Matt yesterday to go see Crush in Woodstock. Actually, now the band is known as Revo. I asked Des why they changed the name and she said that there were too many other bands out there named Crush. The name Crush did sound kind of cheesy upon reflection but I'm not sure how much better Revo is. Sounds too much like Devo. Anyway, they were playing at some dive bar in Woodstock for somebody's 40th birthday party. It kind of sucked as there were middle-aged drunks stumbling all throughout the bar. Usually, I like to be the only one doing that. It was actually the first time in a while where I had quite a bit to drink and I have to tell you, it felt damn good. I'll have to do this more often.

2002-02-20T03:50:00.000-06:00

Haven't done much lately as I'm trying to beat this nasty cold I have. It started right after I got back from Arizona and it's still hanging around. I haven't even been able to make it to the movies this week. I did manage to make it out to DeKalb on Saturday however. Had some good old Paglias Pizza and then went to go see Hart's War. Afterwards, it was to The Annex where I debated political rhetoric with Gregg until he gave in and admitted I was right (okay maybe he didn't admit it yet, but it's only a matter of time). After all, I am Buddha the Wise.

2002-02-16T15:47:00.000-06:00

Went out to watch some Olympic hockey with the Reed brothers last night. The USA crushed Finland 6 - 0. We also tentatively planned a ski trip to either Lake Geneva or Galena. Still looking into some information on both of them. I think I'm getting hooked into this snowboarding thing. Highly recommend this sport.

2002-02-14T13:44:00.000-06:00

Went to Wednesday night bowling with Dale yesterday after missing last week. My opening game I missed a 200 game by 1 pin with a 199. I still haven't hit 200 yet since my triumphant return to bowling. Dale on the other hand nailed a 206 in the 3rd game. I think I got too drunk by the 3rd game because I really started to suck pretty bad. Next week, I'm limiting my alcohol consumption to 2 beers to see how much better I do. Geez... the sacrifices I make for bowling.

2002-02-13T14:57:00.000-06:00

Okay... just got back from Arizona yesterday. The rest of my vacation went like this...

Wednesday, February 6th - Decided to try my luck at the local indian casinos so I headed out for Casino Arizona which was the closest one. This is probably one of the worst casinos I've ever been in in my life. First off, they didn't have a lot of games like Roulette, Craps, or Blackjack. In fact, the only table games they had were poker and a game called Player's 21 which turned out to be a rather retarded version of Blackjack. Instead of playing against the dealer, the players all have to play against each other. Of course the house has to take a commission on each hand dealt so there's no possible way they could lose. It was a total scam. I sat down and was out $50 in about 30 minutes. After that I sat down at a video Blackjack machine and killed another $20 but at least that lasted me for about 2 hours. In the words of comic book store man: "Worst casino ever..." At least we went out to a good dinner afterwards. We met up with a bunch of my sister's friends and went out for Japanese tepanyaki which meant more sushi and more saki bombers.
Thursday, February 7th - Didn't have a car again today so I walked on back over to the mall and went back to the movies to go catch The Count of Monte Cristo. A pretty good movie that has you pulling for the good guy all throughout. It even makes the you start to think that revenge is not always a bad thing. The only problem was that a group of teenie-boppers were talking loudly for a little while but the whole theater seemed to take turns yelling at them to shut up. Someone finally complained to an employee and they were asked to leave amidst a round of applause from the rest of us. After the movie I headed on back to the house, ordered a pizza, and watched movies on HBO for the rest of the night. A very relaxing day.
Friday, February 8th - After my ankle had a few days to rest, it was back to the hiking thing. I tried out the other hiking mountain in Phoenix by the name of Squaw Peak. It was totally easier than Camelback Mountain because it wasn't quite as steep. It was still a great view from the top though (I got more pictures). There were actually a lot of people going up and down this thing for their daily excercise. If only we had mountains back home, that would be great incentive to go work out every day. I was able to make the trip up and down in about 1 hour 30 minutes all the while checking out the ASU college women as they passed from the other direction. Undoubtedly, they were all thinking "What a stud!" as they passed.
Saturday, February 9th - My sister had golf lessons that day so we woke up bright and early and went to the driving range to hit a few golf balls. While she was getting her lessons, I was driving them nearly 400 yards! Okay, not really. But at least I got to hit golf balls in February which I would never get to do in Chicago. Afterwards, there was a Renaissance Festival in town so we headed over to that. These things are always fun mainly because you get to eat giant turkey legs and drink beer. The geeks are always out in full force so you have something to laugh at. And being out in the sun is always a good thing too. Man do I love warm weather...
Sunday, February 10th - Woke up at 4:00AM to go to the Sunrise Ski Resort which was about a 4 hour drive away. I guess it's up somewhere north of Flagstaff in the mountains. We'll we got there and I passed on a lesson since I hadn't yet mastered the lesson I got from the last time. On my first run, I was already better than my first time out because I only fell about 10 times on the way down. Yeah that's still a lot, but it's better than 20 times on the way down. After that run, I honed my skills on the bunny hill a few times while my sister and her boyfriend went to do some of the harder runs. After a few times down the bunny hill, I was back on an easy run and this time I made it down while falling only about 5 times so I was feeling pretty good. After that run, I needed to go back to the lodge to "sit down" in the bathroom as nature was calling. I leaned my snowboard up against the rack (just like everyone else), went inside and did my business, and when I got back out, my snowboard was nowhere in sight. Apparently, some coward-punk stole it! We'll that ended my snowboarding adventures for the day. I walked around looking at everybody's board ready to whup some ass if I ever caught the punk that stole it, but he never turned up.
Monday, February 11th - Since my snowboard was stolen the previous day, it was my mission to go find another one today. Found a place where they where having a sale on all snowboard equipment and got a decent deal on a replacement board. Hopefully I'll have a chance to use it soon. I'll be sure to buy a lock for it so there will be no more incidents like the last time. Spent the rest of the night packing up for my flight home.
Tuesday, February 12th - My flight was at 6:30AM so that meant I had to be at the airport by 5:30AM at the latest. We had to leave the house at 5:00AM to make it there on time so I was in the shower at 4:00AM which meant I got absolutely no sleep the previous night. I got to the airport and checked in my bags but they actually had a guy hand-check everything before they let the bags go. I never thought there would be anyone willing to go through my dirty underwear but it's all in the name of safety I guess. After the 3 hour flight, I was finally home and it actually felt good. I crashed in my bed (which I sorely missed) and slept for hours.

So that was the story of my vacation. I can't complain.

2002-02-06T04:18:00.000-06:00

Greetings from sunny Arizona... I hope it's snowing like hell in Chicago right now, because then I'll actually feel like I got away from the crappy weather there. So here's how my vacation is going so far...
Friday, February 1st - Got to O'Hare and I was expecting mile-long lines based on horror stories that I had heard post 9/11. But when I got there, I was able to get through security in less than 2 minutes. They didn't search me or anything. Makes me wonder how good of a job they're doing. Anyway, I got on the plane (coach of course) and was informed that the movie would be Riding in Cars with Boys. Seeing as I had absolutely no interest in watching that, I passed when the flight attendant offered me headphones to listen to the audio. During the course of the movie, the lady next to me would comment every 10 minutes, "You should watch this movie... it's really good. Drew Barrymore is spectacular." I wanted to retort, "Does she take her shirt off? If not... how spectacular could it be?" But I thought better of that idea for fear of being slapped. I landed in Oakland and then had to wait 5 hours for my sister and her boyfriend's plane to get there. I think I managed to read every word in the local newspaper while I was waiting. When they finally got there, we went to pick up the rental car and of course they didn't have a mini-van for us even though we had a reservation for one. I wanted to use the Seinfeld lines in that situation but never worked up the nerve. When we finally got our mini-van about 45 minutes later, we headed into San Francisco to pick up one more person who would be coming with us to Lake Tahoe. We drove until 4am and finally reached the hotel in Tahoe where we crashed hard but only for about 2 hours because we had to get up at 6am to go snowboarding.
Saturday, February 2nd - We were up at 6am to get ready to head out to the Heavenly resort. When I first heard the name, it actually sounded more like a strip club than a ski resort. If only that were the case... Anyway, we got started right away and went up one of the beginner runs seeing as how I'm a beginner and all. I got off to a bad start immediately and was on my ass within seconds. Keeping your balance on the board isn't the hard part, it's trying to turn and slow down that's hard. At the time, I figured I could just go straight down the mountain without turning or slowing down but I was proved wrong rather quickly when I wiped out going about 25 miles per hour on that thing. Needless to say... IT HURT!! I quickly decided that I needed a lesson so I signed up for one. The instructor taught us how to turn (a little) and slow down which I seemed to get the hang of because I think I only fell once during the lesson. Maybe it had something to with the cute snowbunnies that were also in the lesson whom I might have been trying to impress. After the lesson, I went back to one of the beginner runs and although I did better than the first time, I still fell down quite a bit. After about 7 hours of falling down, I was feeling pretty beat up so I retired to the lodge to kick my feet up while the rest of our group did a few more runs. So that was my first snowboarding experience and it was a pretty painful one at that. I'm not giving up quite so easily though, I think I'll be going again this weekend. Afterwards we headed to the casinos which were right over the Nevada state line (practically within walking distance from our hotel). We hit the Harrah's buffet and I must have put down about 5 pounds of prime rib, shrimp, and crab legs. I love buffets. The big casinos turned out to be pretty crowded and it was hard to get on a table so we ended up going to a smaller casino known simply as Bill's Casino. It would turn out to be a lucky place because I won $100 there. After I had my fill of gambling, we headed back to the room for a much need night of sleep.
Sunday, February 3rd - We woke up around 10am or so and decided to hit one more buffet before we left so we went to the brunch buffet at Harrah's. Again, I put down about 2 pounds of prime-rib (yes for breakfast) and 2 made-to-order omelettes among other things. All in all, a good time was had in Lake Tahoe. I didn't even mind the pain from the bruises on my butt and knees. After brunch we headed back to San Francisco and caught a flight back to Phoenix which basically took the rest of the day.
Monday, February 4th - This turned out to be a day of rest to recover from all the travelling and especially the bruising I took on the mountain. While my sister was at work, I walked over to the Chandler mall (which was only about 3 miles away) and went to see Black Hawk Down at the theater there. I really enjoyed it as it was really intense all throughout the whole movie. It did a great job of showing the heart and desire of the American forces that were there. I think it deserves a 4-spade rating. After the movie, Sis picked me up and we went out for some Mexican food which pretty much wound up the rest of the day.
Tuesday, February 5th - Since I'm in Phoenix, I have to go enjoy some of the great outdoors. My sister borrowed her boyfriend's car so she was able to leave me hers so I could go exploring. I wound up at Camelback Mountain which I successfully climbed because that's the kind of macho guy I am... Actually, it was really hard because most of the way it was really steep and you had to use your hands to pull yourself up to the next boulder. I can't wait to see how many blisters I got from this. Add to that the fact that I somehow managed to sprain my ankle on the rugged terrain about 3/4 of the way up. Not being a quitter, I hobbled up the rest of the way all the while whining to myself about the pain I was in. When I got to the top though it was all worth it as the view opened up to a 360 degree overhead view of the entire Phoenix area. I've got some great pictures to prove it. The way down was a bit trickier (especially with one hobbled ankle). I had to take it real slow because my left ankle wouldn't hold my full weight. Going down actually took me longer than it did going up because I had to be more careful. The whole trip (up and down) probably took about 2 1/2 hours. After that I headed back to meet my sister for dinner. We went to get sushi and saki bombers which I hadn't had in a long while and boy do those things give you a great buzz. Now, here I sit typing this and I'm about to go to bed while I try to decide what to do with the rest of my time here. Maybe another hike and another movie is in order.

2002-01-30T22:29:00.000-06:00

Went to the gym today and the Harper College track team was in the weight room today. Now what possible reason could the track team be in the weight room? I thought all they did was run... Why do you need to do bench presses to run? I always thought the less muscle you have, the less you weigh, and therefore, the faster you run... right?? Maybe that's why the Harper College track team gets creamed at every meet. They just have to stop weight-lifting and then they'll stop losing.
After the gym, I met Dale at El Molino for dinner since it was right by the bowling alley. That place has got some killer mexican food. Then it was off to the bowling alley where I probably averaged about a 140 in 5 games. I need more practice and I can't bowl next week since I'll be out of town. The drive home was pretty slow since it was snowing pretty good. It's not always bad to drive in the snow though because it can be fun fishtailing on those turns. Not that I'm wishing for more snow cause I'm definitely ready for spring.

2002-01-29T19:00:00.000-06:00

Went to see In the Bedroom today. Here's the little blurb I posted on the TsoLong movie site:
The movie acquaints you with the Fowler family who are living very ordinary lives. Dr. Matt Fowler (Tom Wilkinson) is a family doctor with his own practice, Ruth Fowler (Sissy Spacek) is a choir teacher at the local high school, and Frank Fowler is their son who loves to fish and has aspirations of becoming an architect. Their lives are abruptly changed forever when they are forced to deal with sudden tragedy. In the Bedroom is truly heartbreaking and for a while is emotionally draining. Because the whole cast gives a magnificent performance, we can't help but put ourselves into each character's shoes and feel their pain along with them. The only drawback is that the movie seemed to run out of steam for the ending. Perhaps the filmmakers were asking just a bit too much from the audience who were already emotionally exhausted. Still... it's definitely worth the price of admission.

2002-01-28T23:03:00.000-06:00

Dale sent me something amusing today. Rules for men.

2002-01-28T23:01:00.000-06:00

Been trying to get things ready for my Lake Tahoe trip. I went out and got a pair of boots today so I can go snowboarding. Now the only problem is how do I pack a pair of snow boots, snow pants, and hiking boots and have room left for anything else. Hopefully, I can get a little gambling in while we're in Nevada. It's not Vegas, but a craps table looks good anywhere. After Tahoe, I should be going to Arizona to hang out for a week or so. I figure I'll go hiking in the mountains and chill out at the movies all week. The weekend after may be another snowboarding weekend. We'll have to see...

2002-01-26T15:42:00.000-06:00

It's nearly official now that I'm probably going to Lake Tahoe for a little snowboarding on February 1st. The plan is to fly to San Francisco and meet my sister on Friday. We'll crash at her friend's place on Friday night and then drive to Tahoe on Saturday morning. I'll roll down the mountain for about 6 or 7 hours and then we'll head back to San Fran. After that is still up in the air. Should I come back to the cold weather of Chicago or go to Phoenix and enjoy spring-like weather for a little while? I'm definitely leaning strongly towards one of them so see if you can guess which one.

2002-01-25T00:41:00.000-06:00

Went out to see The Shipping News today so here's the scoop. The story follows Quoyle (Kevin Spacey) who throughout all of his life has had to contend with emotional obstacles. After being raised by a pyschologically abusive father, he manages to find a menial job as an ink-setter for the local newspaper and one day accidentally meets Petal (Cate Blanchett). After only a one time fling, Petal becomes pregnant and reluctantly becomes involved with Quoyle and their new daughter. Not knowing anything else in his life, Quoyle has convinced himself that he is in love with Petal. When leaving him for the umptheenth time, she dies in a car accident leaving Quoyle alone with his daughter. Desperately needing an escape from the distressing life he has come to know, Quoyle and his daughter move to Newfoundland, Canada where their family roots originated. It is here where he is able to find a job that he is able to thrive in as a local journalist covering "the shipping news." Quoyle also discovers different types of relationships with people who in turn help him to find out about himself as he slowly re-invents himself.

The movie is actually a lot more intricate than that little summary so don't judge it based on that. The characters in the film are all very complex and very well-performed by a great cast. The Quoyle character has a very agonizing story and the way Kevin Spacey handles it makes you feel immediately compassionate towards him. The versatile Cate Blanchett does a wonderful job playing the horrible mother role to near perfection and Julianne Moore virtually becomes a single mother suffering in silent anguish. Since the film is very much character driven, The Shipping News provides some great insight into some very intriguing characters. The audience should feel like they've actually met them by the end of the movie. It's the first profound film I've seen in a while so it was a very nice treat.

2002-01-24T00:01:00.000-06:00

Another full day today. First, I went to go see Gosford Park which was pretty disappointing. Maybe I just didn't quite get their dry British wit, but for a movie that was supposedly funny (according to all the television commercials), it really wasn't. In addition, the movie's characters all seemed to be poorly developed. We merely get a glimpse into each character's personality which makes it very difficult to care about their various predicaments. I think the filmmakers tried to squeeze in too many intertwining plotlines to adequately expand on any one of them. There were so many plotlines to set up that the murder-mystery took nearly 1 1/2 hours to develop and by that point, it was really hard to care about the "whodunit" part. When the big mystery is finally solved, there's no big feeling of satisfaction either. Discontent is more like it. The last thing I thought to myself as I left the theater was, "That's the big finale? How dull." If there is anything good that came out of Gosford Park, it's the 1930's social commentary focusing on the dividing line between the privileged and the servants. It's only about 70 years too late to be considered groundbreaking or anything. Gosford Park gets 2.5 spades.

Next it was off to the gym which is never exciting. After which was the usual Wednesday night bowling. I'm definitely getting more use to my new ball. I even ordered a pair of bowling shoes off the internet yesterday. We're trying to find a fourth person to join the Thursday night league (hint-hint to the 4 people that read this blog). The league starts on February 7th and is at the Brunswick Zone in Algonquin. Apparently, if you join... they give you a free bowling ball too! Now who can turn that down?

2002-01-23T10:36:00.000-06:00

Well I tried to make the most of my full day yesterday. I went to Boloney's for lunch and got a turkey sandwich. I swear that nice lady who owns the place makes the best sandwiches in the state. After my hearty meal, I had to drive to Warrenville (near Naperville) to go to the AMC 30 down there. I guess Brotherhood of the Wolf is only in limited release and that was the closest theater that had it. It was only about a 25 minute drive so it wasn't too bad at all.

The movie is from France and was subtitled for American audiences (although I did take four years of French so I was able to pick out a few words and phrases here and there - mostly the dirty ones). Everytime I have to read subtitles though, it seems like I'm missing part of the movie. I say that because instead of watching such things as a character's expressions or movements, we have to focus on the bottom of the screen for the translation. Subtitled movies are better when watching them the second time because you already know the story and therefore get to focus on more of the onscreen action. Anyway, the movie had the feel of a mini-epic and had some great fight sequences. The setting is 18th century France and there is some sort of beast on the loose killing hundreds of women and children. The majority of the movie is spent trying to hunt down this beast. There's also love, politics, and friendship laced into the story which makes it all the more interesting. Did I mention the great fight scenes? Some plotlines were not really developed enough though. By the end of the movie, the characters of Fronsac (Samuel Le Bihan) and Marianne (Emilie Dequenne) are supposedly in love and yet we never really get to see them falling in love. One moment, it seems as though they are hardly involved and the next they seem to be deeply in love. Another may be the character of Jean-François (Vincent Cassel) whose motives seemed hard to follow and there doesn't seem to be much reason behind his actions. Of course most of this could be due to differences caused by the translation process. I'll give it a rating of 3.5 spades for now pending a second viewing.

Since I drove all the way down there, I figured I might as well get my money's worth so I hopped on into The Royal Tenenbaums. It's got an all-star cast including Gene Hackman, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Stiller, and Owen Wilson just to name a few. The Tenenbaum family is led by Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman) who has been estranged from his family for many years but is now trying to make amends. He tries many things in order to get back into his family's good graces. The movie is genuinely funny as I found myself laughing on multiple occasions. It's not that "stupid" kind of funny either but instead, it's a very "smart" kind of funny. A nice break from the likes of Not Another Teen Movie. I found myself leaving the theater in a good mood. 4 spades for The Royal Tenenbaums.

2002-01-22T08:55:00.000-06:00

I'm awake insanely early today for no good reason... It's not that I'm not tired because I am. I didn't get to sleep until about 4:30AM and my eyes just popped open at 6:30AM but I just can't get back to sleep for some reason. I figure I'll go find someplace good for lunch and then I'll be off to the movies. It's suppose to be 50 degrees outside today in the middle of January! I can't spend a nice day like this at home. Hopefully, this will be a very mild winter and it's looking good so far.

2002-01-21T18:08:00.000-06:00

I finally got my bowling ball on Friday and was able to try it out. Originally, the thumb hole was drilled a little too small so I kept throwing horrible looking shots. That was quickly fixed for $3 at the pro shop. I still have to get use to it, but my scores are already getting better with the new ball. I also bought the rest of my snow apparel so I can go snowboarding now. Hopefully that will be next weekend. I've been reworking the TsoLong website and so far the movie page has been done. The main page should be done and put up later tonight. Now all that's left is going in and reorganizing the files into directories so they're not all over the place. That may take a little while.

2002-01-18T01:42:00.000-06:00

Went out to Dekalb today and went bowling at the Husky Den for the first time in about 5 years. Other than today... the last time I bowled there, I got to leave clutching two trophies from the league championships. I can't say that my return today was quite as triumphant. I definitely had a subpar bowling outing and I can't think of anything to blame it on. Oh wait... I think there was maybe gum stuck on the bottom of my shoe. Yeah... there was gum... and it made me bowl badly. That's my story and I'm gonna have to stick to it. After bowling, me & Gregg went to the computer labs and re-conceptualized the TsoLong website. After the changes are made, it should be easier to navigate the site and it should look a little better too. After that, it was off to the movies to see A Beautiful Mind. Russell Crowe probably deserves an Academy Award for this role more so than he did in Gladiator. He did a great job playing the schizophrenic John Nash. Nash's story in itself was very interesting. It was inspirational to see a man overcome such great obstacles and win a Nobel Prize. Still digesting the movie so I don't even know what I would rate it yet.

That's the snowboard that my sister says she has for me. The only problem is that it's in Arizona. That being the case, I figure it might be a good excuse to take a trip out there to try out the mountain snow. It has to beat the little hills of Wisconsin. Haven't made up my mind quite yet, but I could really use an Arizona trip in the midst of this mid-western ice age. We'll see...

2002-01-15T21:23:00.000-06:00

Just saw an ad for next week's episode of Alias and Quentin Tarantino will be guest starring. I guess he got bored waiting for Uma Thurman to have her baby so they can begin shooting Kill Bill. I think Tarantino's still under the impression that he's a good actor. We'll see, I guess. My big accomplishment for the day was hacking into one of my DVD players. Now it's region free and I can turn off the Macrovision which means I can tape DVD's on to VHS tapes without having to worry about the lousy copy protection. Now I'm going to go rent some DVD's to try it out.

2002-01-14T22:13:00.000-06:00

Got in the gym today and I was able to make my 3 mile run again. I guess I'm back in tip-top shape... or not. Afterwards, I went to the movies of course and saw The Majestic. I guess this was supposed to be Jim Carrey's most dramatic performance to date and he actually wasn't too bad either. The bad thing was that the script was a tad cheesy and the emotional moments seemed to be a little forced. It was 2 hours and 30 minutes which was way too long for this movie. There were some very slow moments which should have probably ended up on the deleted scenes section of the DVD. There was also a father & a son sitting behind me who were instantly some of the most ignorant people I have ever come across. During the first half hour of the movie I heard from behind me on at least 3 or 4 occasions, "This ain't funny. Jim Carrey should do somethin'. Where's all them jokes?" Thankfully, they left about half hour into the movie. Otherwise, I would have had to lay some serious smack down.

2002-01-13T01:41:00.000-06:00

Well Dale did managed to get me out of bed this morning to go bowling. He came over at about 11am and we headed to the bowling alley and I bowled very well today too. I bowled a 145, 188, and 182 so I think I got my bowling arm back. Afterwards, I went to the Pro-Shop and bought myself a bowling ball. I figured if I can do well with one of those crappy house balls, then my own ball ought to make me even better. It'll be ready on Friday so I guess I'll have to wait to test it out.
Today must have been one of those days where things go well. Good things for today:
-Bowled well.
-Got a bowling ball.
-Went to Famous Dave's for lunch.
-I only had to pay 95 cents per gallon for gas.
-Philadelphia Eagles won their game today thus giving the Bears an easier schedule en route to the Superbowl.
-Watched Reservoir Dogs.

I need to sleep now since I was up so very early to bowl.

2002-01-12T01:46:00.000-06:00

Went to see Ali today which is the new one by Michael Mann. I must say that watching it was so very tedious. The movie just moves so slowly, I was beginning to lose interest within the first 30 minutes of a 2 1/2 hour movie. I'm not trying to diminish anything about Muhammad Ali's life, but it just wasn't very interesting to me. Can't say that I recommend this one.
After the movie Dale called and wanted to go bowling tomorrow morning but I doubt I'll be able to get up in time. Besides, I don't even have my bowling ball yet. Then the Reed's called and wanted to put our pink cards to use and I gladly obliged. For those who don't know what the pink cards are for... let's just say they're for a more risqué type of establishment. I do have to say that the employees of said establishment did a wonderful job and every one of them was very, very friendly. They earned every cent of the tips that I gave (which only totaled to about 39 cents). A good night to all cause I will be dreaming good dreams tonight.

2002-01-11T15:21:00.000-06:00

There are a couple things I need to take care of this weekend. The first of which is getting myself some ski-pants because the Reeds are bent on going skiiing sometime very soon. I think I'm gonna be renting a snowboard when I get out there though. My sister says skiing is for pansies, and snowboarding is where the action is at. Except she used a different word than "pansies". Skiiing is probably the easy way out, since you have those poles and everything to keep your balance with. Snowboarding could get a bit rough because you don't have those poles which could make turning and stopping into a nightmare. Either way, I expect to be on my ass rolling down the hill about 95% of the time.
My other thing I need to get is a bowling ball for next week's games. Have to practice if we're gonna try to join the Wednesday night leagues and win. I have the image that we're going to look like the crew in the Big Lebowski. I want to be "The Dude" though. Last time we were bowling, this guy in a purple jacket comes strolling up looking for a challenge... Went by the name of Jesus I believe.