Some more movie reviews...

Over the break, I did get an opportunity to see several movies. I have a few comments to make about some of them.

National Treasure 2: I really liked it. I did like Riley Poole's role in the first one a lot better. Probably because I connected with his character a little more. Possibly because he gave in a bought a Mac.... My one major comment: If you buy the 32-ounce Coke, visit the restroom around the time that you go west of the Mississippi. There's a LOT of water in the last hour of this movie....

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Enjoyable. Although it was done really well, I love these stories - I know it's cliche, but the books are better. I do like their casting for Trillian. To quote the Commentary on the DVD: "Those eyes! C'mon they were made for each other...." And a personal quote that I use a lot that I think I must have picked up from this movie the first time that I saw it: "It's the best I could do at short notice."

Life Stinks: Really, really, really good. This might be in my favorite movies of all time. (Along with The Princess Bride, L.A. Story, Better Off Dead, and Scrooged - in case you cared.) I saw this movie in the theater back in '91 - it was as good as I remembered. I had to introduce the wife to this one - she didn't believe me that a Mel Brooks movie entitled Life Stinks would be worth seeing at all. I tried to tell her that it would be a good one for new years, but she didn't go for it, now she wishes she had. (Hitchhiker's won that vote...) It's not at all a traditional Mel Brooks movie - that's why it's not in any collections - it's also why it is so hard to find - nobody saw the movie the first time and nobody knows that they want to see it now. I wanted to put in my favorite quotes, but I couldn't do it without ruining the movie. It's worth seeing and, naturally, it really resonates if you are already a pessimist.

Alan Menken Redeemed

I loved Alan Menken's work in The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast. In subsequent movies where he worked with Tim Rice, it became more obvious to me that I liked Howard Ashman more than I actually liked Alan Menken.

This was confirmed to me when I saw the theatrical version of Beauty and the Beast in which Alan made a few musical changes. Since I know the Beauty and the Beast soundtrack so well, the changes were painfully obvious to me. The first act I actually liked better than the movie and at the intermission, I even made a few comments to people that I think that Menken has possibly redeemed himself. The second act however confirmed to me that I really don't like Menken's musical style.

Tonight I went to Enchanted. This soundtrack has totally redeemed Alan Menken in my mind. It was so good that I did not even consider that he could have been involved until his name showed up in the end credits.

The best song on the soundtrack, That's How You Know, almost ranked him up there with with Hans Zimmer - well almost. Unfortunately, Alan has Home Alone 2 smeared across his resume - and that's going to take a lot of really good writing to cover up.

Common sense?

ICYC - bubble gum and beards don't mix. Funny what you don't think of after 15 to 20 years of not chewing gum....

Scams and Viruses

I received the following scam alert yesterday and knew that I needed to make sure that everyone had heard it! (As a bonus, I also attached a virus alert that you need to pay attention to in case you haven't heard about it yet!)

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I hate it when people forward bogus warnings, and I have even done it myself a couple times unintentionally... but this one is real, and it's important. So please send this warning to everyone on your e-mail list.

If someone comes to your front door saying they are checking for ticks due to the warm weather and asks you to take your clothes off and dance around with your arms up, DO NOT DO IT!! THIS IS A SCAM!! They only want to see you naked.

I wish I'd gotten this yesterday. I feel so stupid.

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If you receive an e-mail with a subject of Badtimes, delete it immediately WITHOUT READING IT. This is the most DANGEROUS e-mail virus ever.

It will rewrite your hard drive and scramble any disks that are even close to your computer. It will recalibrate your freezer's coolness setting so all your ice cream melts. It will demagnetize the strips on all your credit cards, screw up the tracking on your VCR, and use subspace field harmonics to render any CDs you try to play unreadable.

It will give your ex-boy/girlfriend/ex-husband/wife your new phone number. It will mix antifreeze into your fishtank. It will drink all your beer and leave its socks out on the coffee table when company comes over. It will put a kitten in the back pocket of your good suit and hide your car keys when you are late for work.

Badtimes will make you fall in love with a penguin. It will give you nightmares about circus midgets. It will pour sugar in your gas tank and shave off both your eyebrows while dating your current boy/girlfriend behind your back and billing the dinner and hotel room to your Visa card.
It moves your car randomly around parking lots so you can't find it. It will tease your dog. It will leave strange messages on your boss's voicemail in your voice. It is insidious and subtle. It is dangerous and terrifying to behold. It is also a rather interesting shade of mauve.

Badtimes will give you Dutch Elm disease. It will leave the toilet seat up. It will make a batch of methamphetamine in your bathtub and leave bacon cooking on the stove while it goes out to chase high school kids with your snowblower.

These are just a few of the signs. Be very, very afraid!

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Consider yourself warned. And be careful out there!

Some of you may appreciate this....

I was sent to watch this in August and I'm still laughing at it, so I guess that I need to post it.



I realize that it makes very little sense to the non-classical-musically minded among us, but to somebody who once played Pachelbel's canon on tuba (the tuba part for the band is the same as the cello part for orchestra), I can very much appreciate this.

I love going to weddings and hearing the brides who are so excited about how they chose Pachelbel's Canon in D instead of something more traditional. I think I've heard Pachelbel at every wedding I've been to but my own.... (At least at the reception...)

This morning in worship, we sang Brad Kilman's "We are Hungry". I started laughing so hard, I almost had to leave the room.

Adding Insult to Injury

Over the weekend, my sweet bride shared with several people that I was injured and made up this really neat story of how I fell into a ravine. So, now as people are asking me about my huge injury, I get to explain that the "ravine" was about an inch, maybe two, high. Basically, I tripped and it laid me up for 2 days.

From bad to worse...

So yesterday I sustained what is most likely my first ever sports injury. Since geocaching is a non-contact sport, I figured the probability was lower, but obviously not at zero.

So, I have a sprained ankle, and I’m trying to determine if there is a fracture.

In the process of trying to lessen the swelling, I got to prove my allergy to Advil.

And so I also can’t see very well since my eyes are swollen shut.

Halo Flu - a month late...

So, for the last month or so, I've been working my way through Halo's 1 and 2 in preparation for the release of Halo 3. One of the things I like about the Halo series is that it's not a "kill everything that moves" game - there's actually a plot. I wanted to catch up on the story line before I got moving. I remembered most of the plot of 1, but since I had a one-year-old around the house when Halo 2 came out I wasn't able to play it at full volume and missed some of the story. I still have small kids in the house, but I figured out a way to hook headphones up to my 360. When it came to replaying the games, I knew that I wasn't in a hurry to finish because I wasn't going to be able to get Halo 3 until Christmas anyway.

Well, Wednesday of last week, I received a copy of Halo 3 mailed to me in an unmarked envelope. A gift I do appreciate (in case the random gifter reads my blog - you can consider this post to also be my thank you note), but it gave me a bit more incentive to finish Halo 2.

Well, I finished Halo 2 last night. Then I got "sick". My wife said that the smells eminating from the bathroom and passing out around midnight were convincing enough to take a day off from work.

So, I got to play a while today. My favorite part so far is a little Easter Egg that I found wandering down a random hallway. Two characters with voices STRIKINGLY similar to Simmons and Caboose on Red vs Blue arguing over knowing the password necessary to open a door. I got myself clobbered just so that I could share the moment with Melissa.

So, a geek walks into an REI...

Ya know... Certain people just don't "fit" certain stores. A guy just can't walk into a Victoria's Secret. And a chubby, white-n-nerdy just can't walk into an REI. You could just see everybody looking at me placing their bets - is he going to get a gift card or is he going for the GPS area?

Anyway, I'm now the proud owner of an eTrex Legend.

Merry Christmas to me! And thanks dad....

Well, they found me....

In the last 24 hours, I have received 3435 spam emails. I think I might need to make some changes. Only about 20 weren't filtered out. I must say that I do like Outlook 2007.