Lying Down on the Job Again

Yeah, so 3 weeks have gone by. It's easier to do than you might think. And what's worse is that I still don't have a heck of a lot to write about.

Finally got around to watching Precious last night. Definitely the feel-good, laugh-out-loud, uproarious comedy of 2009! I can't believe that was Tyler Perry playing Precious! Seriously though, you can put that one squarely in the category of "really good movie that I never want to watch again." Still to this day I don't know when a good time to watch a movie like that is. You don't wanna watch it when you're in a great mood 'cause it'll certainly put a stop to that and I'm not sure you wanna watch it if you're already feeling crappy 'cause then you'll really feel awful. Still, probably better off with the latter as opposed to the former. Then again, if you're a big fan of schadenfreude, then this is definetely the movie for you! In any case, very good performances all around and I believe this marks the first appearance of Mariah Carey in a non-terrible movie. Funny side story; her role was originally to be played by Halle Berry, but she had to cancel at the last minute due to a scheduling conflict. I would have loved to have sat in on that casting session:

"Guys, bad news. Halle Berry's out."
"Great; who are we gonna get to replace an Oscar-winning actress on short notice?"
"I've got it: Mariah Carey!"
"Perfect!"

In other news, if you've got even a tinge of sci-fi nerdish tendencies I recommend that you head over to http://www.redlettermedia.com/ and check out the 70-minute Phantom Menace or 90-minute Attack of the Clones reviews. Both are pretty hilarious and are easily more watchable (and rewatchable) than the films themselves. I can't really explain them in any way that actually will mean anything to the uninitiated; it's one of those things that has to be experienced. Most people watch the first one (they're divided into 10-minute chunks on Youtube) and are like "huh?!?" but you develop this weird compulsion to keep going. By the end of about the 3rd or 4th, though, you'll "get it" and be able to decide if it's your cup of tea or not. He's also done some Star Trek reviews too, and they're really good too but since I'm not as big of a Trekkie I like the Star Wars ones better.

That's it for now. I'll try not to make it another 3 weeks again.

In Celebration of Pedestrian Accomplishments

So on Tuesday I broke my previous record for beating the original Legend of Zelda on the NES: the new record is 54 minutes. I was on the el when I did it and yelled out in celebration. Somehow the other passengers weren't quite as enthused as me and edged slowly away from me. Oh well; more seat room for me. I had initially set a goal of beating it in 45 minutes, but now I don't think it very likely. This new time was only 3 minutes faster than my old best and I don't really see a whole lot of places where I can get that much faster. Probably time to turn my attention to another pointless activity.

Anyone else sick to death of hearing about Tiger Woods? Am I missing something that makes this a big story that needs to be reported on daily? And I would have no problem if it was just the tabloid shows, late night TV, and E! talking about it - that's what they're for. But I have a real problem when CNN starts reporting this as actual news. Let me recap the story from my perspective: it turns out that an extremely wealthy and successful athlete was repeatedly unfaithful to his wife, who was not at all pleased with him when she found out and assaulted him, and as a result he took 4 months off of golf. Which part of this even qualifies as mildly surprising? I know that not all athletes cheat on their wives but the perception is that most do so, again, it shouldn't be very surprising. Exempting Tiger Woods from this was as foolish as exempting Michael Jordan from it.

Of course, I guess I'm the one who shouldn't be surprised. I've never agreed with the media's obsession with Tiger. I have no problem when they focus on him when he's atop the leaderboard, but I can't tell you the number of times I've seen the highlight recap or a golf tournament where all they do is show shots of Tiger and then say something like "Tiger finished in 6th, 5 shots behind the winner." And then maybe they show one 2-second shot of the winner getting his trophy and then move on. That's disrespectful to the winner and to the game.

All that being said, Augusta is easily the most beautiful course in the country and looks fantastic in HD, so I'll definitely be adding golf into the hockey-and-Cubs sports repertoire this weekend.

I'm Back!

You may have noticed a slightly new look to the blog. I got a few complaints that the white font on black background was such a stark contrast to the rest of the web's black-on-white that it was hard on the eyes so I decided to change it. After having a few days to get used to it I think I like it better, even if it now looks more like almost every other blog on the net.

So after a week of R&R down in Houston I'm back and . . . well, pretty damn tired actually. But no matter. Today is Opening Day so all is right with the world! It will also hopefully be the day that we get to witness Duke go down in humiliating fashion to big underdog Butler. And if we can add in a Cubs victory the day will be complete! I'll try to put together a Cubs preview (which I skipped last year) sometime this week but overall I'm actually a lot more optimistic than most Cubs fans are. I'm predicting 89 wins and a wild-card berth.

Didn't do a whole lot down in Houston, which is exactly how we planned it. Got out to play golf once and grandma and grandpa were nice enough to babysit one night so Christy and I could go out to dinner and see Hot Tub Time Machine. The movie was meh but it was very nice to be able to get out and have a date night. Other than that we just did a lot of visiting with family and chilling out as best we could and as baby would allow. There are some flight horror stories but I think I'll let my wife handle those tales over on her blog. Overall Anabelle was a real trooper and was happy to just go along with whatever we were doing on any particular day. We're very lucky that we've got such an easygoing baby. Hopefully she doesn't realize that she's going easy on us and decide to ramp it up.

We got back in yesterday and I had a package from Amazon waiting for me. It was the new blu-ray of Toy Story that just came out last week. So I popped it in last night and Wow! That is definitely a showcase disc for a blu-ray player and HDTV. And that's pretty amazing considering that the movie is almost 15 years old. Given the limitations of the projectors at the time I think it's quite probable that the movie has never looked as good as it does now. It's also the first time I've watched the movie in about 6 or 7 years and it's every bit as good as I remembered it. It's probably the quintessential example of a film with a story so simple that even 2 and 3-year-olds can understand it but with a ton of extra layers packed in for older kids and adults too. Highly recommended addition to your blu-ray collection. It's also made me excited to see Toy Story 3 this summer; although I think Anabelle will still be too young for it. That one may end up being a rental.