Franky Says Relax

Well, I guess you guys don't like economics talk that much. I swear, I think I could hear crickets chirping after that last post. Oh well, just further confirmation of what I've always thought (that I'm a huge nerd).

Won't be a whole lot in the way of significant content this week (I can hear the disappointment now) as Christy and I are currently relaxing with the Ps down in Houston. Considering that our last "vacation" over Christmas was spent packing and moving to our new place, it has been over a year since our last real break and it feels great to be able to sit back and not even have marathon training or the CPA hanging over my head. So far we've attended a Cubs game (they lost), hit up a casino in Lake Charles, LA (I lost $150 because blackjack is an evil, evil game), and got a little golfing in, which we're also doing tomorrow morning. Also will be working at Windy City Pizza for a few hours tomorrow night before going to see The Dark Knight. Judging by the amount of money it made this past weekend, apparently Christy and I will be the last 2 people in America to see it. Then we're taking the nieces and nephews to see Wall-E on Wednesday. In between all of that I have also finally started reading War and Peace. It's very strange to be over 200 pages into a book and feel like I'm still at the very beginning. The goal will be to get through it by the end of the summer, though I have a feeling that as soon as I get over halfway I'll power my way through to the end. Believe it or not, it's actually a pretty easy book to read. It just takes a little while each time to get used to Tolstoy's rhythm but once you do the pages just fly by. He also writes very short chapters so even though it's so monstrously long you always feel like you're making progress on it.

For any fellow movie nerds like me, just wanted to take a moment to do some advertising for Deep Discount DVD. This week they are running a buy 1 get 1 free on all Criterion Collection DVDs. For those movies which have yet to come out on Blu-Ray, Criterion is the top of the line version you can get in terms of both transfer quality and special features. I already have a lot of my favorites, but I just picked up Dazed and Confused and Ran (the last of my favorite Kurosawa films that I didn't have). Some of the ones I would particularly recommend are Brazil (of course), Hoop Dreams, Harakiri, The Bicycle Thief and 8 and a half (two classic Italian masterpieces), any of the other Kurosawa films (Seven Samurai, Ikiru, Rashomon, Kagemusha, Throne of Blood, and the Hidden Fortress), as well as any of the Ingmar Bergman films (The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries are two of my favorites but you really can't go wrong). At an average of about $32 per film, that means you can get these for ~$16 each when bought in pairs. That's a steal. Here ends the advertisement.

OK, think that's about it for now and will probably be the last update of the week. I'll be spending the rest of the week relaxing, recharging, and undoubtedly coming up with more topics to either interest (hopefully) or bore (more likely) all of you.