The Curtisphere

Keeping an eye out for St. Michael, the curative powers of Pizza Hut, and wtf is a Chegg-nog?

2010-10-31T21:57:00.004-04:00

Heather and i had a bit of a strange journey getting Ollie costumed up for Halloween this year. initially we had our hearts set on a killer pirate costume Heather had spied on eBay, but we kept losing the auctions because we'd forget about them and because i'm too cheap a bastard to pay the going rate. plus, the whole thing we loved about it was the hat; it was this huge, swept-up, wraparound job with a giant Jolly Roger on the front, but getting Ollie to wear a hat for any longer than it takes him to rip off as soon as it touches his skin is like getting Lindsay Lohan to stop sniffing coke and pretending she cares about rehab (aka good luck with that). so we punted on the pirate costume. our back-up plan was a Chinese kung-fu outfit his Auntie Robin got for him a while, but we boned it by not trying it on him until the 11th hour and of course it was too big. we punked out and sent Ollie to school on Friday for their Halloween parade and celebration wearing some bear pajamas. but Heather lucked out and found a 2T of an Old Navy dragon costume we'd seen but had been unable to locate in Ollie's size. the 2T was too big, but not fatally so; we rolled up the sleeves and the waistband of the pants, which we then pinned to his onesie to keep the clawed feet covers from dragging and making him trip. as you can see by the pics, it was a fabulous, not to mention serendipitous score.

and thusly attired in his baby Pete's Dragon getup, Ollie attended a birthday party for his friend Hannah this afternoon — youngest daughter of my PiC Don — and though it was a bit rocky to start thanks to Ollie getting less than half his normal nap-time today, he warmed up considerably after the pizza got there and he ate a slice. he also dodged a disciplinary bullet — he was playing out on the deck over by the gate where Don had penned in their two dogs. he was putting his hands through the gate to pet them, and this other kid came over and started to do the same ... until Ollie reached over, put a hand square in the middle of the kid's chest and shoved, loudly saying, "NO." i scolded him as best i could through the laughter, and i think he realized i was laughing, because instead of stopping, Ollie grabbed the kid's arm the next time he tried to pet them. and that was all she wrote, that kid ran off whining for his mom, who luckily was nowhere to be found.

So it being Ollie's first true Halloween — i.e. where he actually went trick-or-treating — what does he go and do? the very first house we hit, he trips on something going up the driveway and face-plants into the hard cement, scratching up his left cheek. he screamed for a bit, and i thought it might queer the whole evening, make him scared to go up to anymore houses, but we were with his two older cousins, and they helped him get right back in the saddle. he never said "trick-or-treat" (i was hoping he would after he said it a couple of times last week when we practiced with him), but he signed and said "please" and "thank you" to a bunch of people. he also had his first pieces of real candy: some M&Ms and a tootsie pop.

and with that ... it's November. turkey time will be here before you can say tryptophan. who's making the sweet potato soufflé and pumpkin pie? actually, screw that ... the REAL win is the triumphant return of the Chai-egg nog (or Chegg-nog) Latte at Starbucks. yesssssss.

Guess who's back ... back again ... (and i brought my Ollie decoder ring with me)

2010-10-30T23:38:00.001-04:00

hello.

(listen. just ... don't. ok? i'm sufficiently awash in guilt and shame. there's no need to dogpile on.)

so, where to begin? (or should i say, where to resume?) Ollie is almost 19 months old, probably will be by the time anyone actually reads this. he's nearly three feet tall. he weighs a shade over 24 pounds. he likes to eat boiled eggs, hummus, bananas, wild rice, and Buck's pizza. when we got to the mall, he can't stand riding in his stroller for more than a few minutes before loudly demanding, "Release me from this infernal contraption so that I can run amok in the midst of all these unsuspecting shoppers and merchants!"

now that we've somewhat begun to break him of his pacifier (more on that in a bit), he's talking like a wild-man. i've never tried counting how many words he says, but if i did, it would surely be in the dozens, perhaps even over 50. here's a sampling of a few of the more interesting ones he's using lately:

"Gabba" — as in, Yo Gabba Gabba, currently his favorite TV show. i was surprised when he started requesting it, even over his beloved Elmo. i can't get him to say the "yo" part, though. if i say, "Ollie, say yo," he just looks at me and says, "Gabba?" then if i say "yo" again, he says, "Gabba?" he'll do it until either i quit or crank up an episode on DVD or the DVR.

"Dee Dee" — his request to watch television. as i said, 99% of the time he just says "Gabba?" because that's all he wants to watch, but occasionally he'll still say "Elmo?" or just plain "Dee dee?" what's funny is it seems to depend on which TV he is closest to, because, for some reason, he only watches certain shows on certain TVs. the main theater TV is still Elmo. the set in our bedroom is just "Dee dee?" because he's only recently started watching DVDs in there and doesn't have a set show yet. the downstairs TV and the player in my car that he watches on the way to and from school, however, are both "Gabba?"

"Nee nee" — his pacifier. we have no idea where he got it or why he started calling them this. (we've finally started the weaning process. we took all the ones downstairs and cut off the ends. the first time he asked me for one after we'd performed the nee-nee-tip-oscopy, he put it in his mouth, sucked on it a time or two, then pulled it back out, looked at the end where the tip used to be, then looked at me as if to say, "um, dude, what the @#%* is this?" he even pointedly stuck his finger in the end, as if to point out, "hello, are you seeing the problem here, or do i have to draw you a picture in art class?")
"Oscar the doggie" — this sounds more like "Oscar the daddy," but after hearing it roughly 1,458 times, i've learned to distinguish between daddy, aka the doggie and daddy, aka me.

"Soccer" — he has a size 1 soccer ball his Grandpa bought him and he just recently started calling it "Soccer" instead of ball. what does he do with it? naturally, everything BUT kick the damn thing. the only way i can get him to kick it is to put it in front of his feet as he's running past me. i don't need to tell you this has resulted in a fair number of full-out, body-sprawling face plants.

"Star Wars" — yes, he says it. however, he still doesn't say it unprompted, AND i have to be holding him up in front of a particular one of my posters. but the best part — ok, it's a tie between him saying it at all and this — is when he points to the Death Star and says, "Ball?"

what else? when he runs, he pumps one arm back and forth like he's trying to crank-start a lawnmower or something. he may or may not be left-handed. he has no fear of heights and will scale anything that supports his weight. (including the dog.) one of his girlfriends at school is a two-year-old named Ella who the staff at Goddard delayed in moving to the next class because she kept beating up the other kids on the playground. when Heather looks at pictures on Facebook and sees anyone from his class, he will point at them and attempt to say their name (with varying degrees of success).

i don't have much of a Halloween Movie Festival report, i'm sad to say. Eric and i did watch Session 9, a criminally underseen flick from 2001 about an asbestos crew who start experiencing some weirdness after they take a job cleaning out an old mental hospital. normally i despise David Caruso, on many levels, but he's pretty good here (with one exception, which is so horrifically cheesy it puts most of the crap he pulls on CSI: Miami utterly to shame. if you follow the link, be warned: he drops the F-bomb.). everything, from the story, the atmosphere, the acting, even the music, is effective and interesting, not to mention pretty creepy. worth searching for.

i also had a wild hair to revisit Psycho, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year (about which there has been an alarming lack of ... anything. Universal did release it on blu-ray, but to absolutely no fanfare, which shocked me.). i have nothing new to add, Hitchcock was The Man, and i love all the stories about the lengths he went to to preserve the secrecy of the storyline and the integrity of that first viewing experience. could never happen today, and i'm sure Hitch would be disgusted by the deluge of information that's available on a film before it's even been released.

gonna try and make this a regular thing again. i know, no one will believe that until it happens. hell, i won't believe it either. so look for a Halloween update ... before next Halloween.

2009 Christmas Letter

2009-12-05T19:53:00.006-05:00

“Blah blah blah da da da dit dit dit dit dadadada phhbtphhbptphhbpt ahhhrrrrghhhhh hunnnnnnhhhh phhhhhbbbbbbbt buh buh buh buh buh HAHAHAHA duh duh duh duh!”

(No, I don’t need to be ticketing for TUI (Typing Under the Influence). Neither have I been experimenting with heavy narcotics, nor broken all my fingers in a fit of video-game-fueled nerd-rage. Rather, I simply asked Oliver, who, in case you’ve been living somewhere on the Outer Rim for most of the past year and somehow didn’t get any of our seven THOUSAND deep space transmissions, is our beautiful and boisterous baby boy who graciously agreed to join the ranks of our little family back on March 31st, what he wanted to contribute to our holiday letter, and that was his response. Verbatim. (It did, however, give my spell checker a crap-attack which nearly sent my computer spiraling into a fatal memory meltdown. He’s worth it, though.))

Splendiferous festive salutations!

Yes, 2009 has been a sublime yet surreal year for this splinter of Clan Curtis. And the arrival of Benjamin Everett Oliver had NOTHING to do with it. I could rattle on for pages about how his miraculous presence has transformed and enriched our lives in a myriad of wonderful ways and … OK, you talked me into it.

His eyes are droplets of liquid curiosity; his breath is sweeter than clover honey; his smile is distilled mirth, dusted with a sprinkling of roguery; and his laugh should be FDA-approved and made available over-the-counter, for there isn’t a bad mood or a funk or a depression that can withstand its undeniable curative powers. (Too bad he lets it out of the cage he keeps it in so rarely. The little miser!)

As of this writing, Heather is still nursing the young master, and we’ve already seen the benefits; Ollie’s only really had what I would call two true illnesses, and both times he seemed largely unaffected. Also, Ollie is this close to crawling. He’ll get on his hands and knees and rock back and forth, and he already can go backwards and spin around on the spot. Several of his teachers at Goddard think he may just bypass it altogether and move straight into standing and walking. (The Light help us if that’s the case. Um, have you seen where we live? God would have a hard time baby-proofing the sanity-scouring, discombobulated wreckage of books/shoes/décor/various and sundry pieces of entertainment memorabilia/random clutter we call our home. It’s seriously like the semi-permanent eye of a domestic hurricane that could explode into chaos at any moment with no warning.)

Speaking of Heather, she is the perfect, most loving and patient mother to Oliver. If, by some freak chain of events, at some point during or after his turbulent adolescence he claims not to have known pure, unadulterated parental love, it will be me who failed him, because Heather is incapable of showering him with anything but.

Sadly, 2009 wasn’t without its dark patches, I’m afraid. A degenerative knee condition has forced me to eliminate soccer and running from my fitness regimen, and while I’ve tried to fill the void with swimming and other non-impact cardio, it’s just not the same. And seeing as I’ve yet been unable (read: unwilling) to jettison Mountain Dew and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups from my diet, hopefully Heather won’t object to a somewhat rounder version of me in 2010. (However, if said rotundity ever jeopardizes my ability to accoutre myself in a single one of my STUNNING collection of Star Wars t-shirts, well, Reese’s and the Dew, it was nice knowing you, thanks for the memories, don’t let the door smack your butt on the way out.)

My company, Catalyst Technologies, was recently acquired by MedAssurant (cue an awkward silence followed by loud groans then finally some lusty booing). Since my office is less than six miles from the house and Ollie’s daycare is literally across the parking lot from my building, I’m not going to mention that both previous times I’ve worked for a company that got bought out, I wound up getting laid off. Did you not hear that? That was me NOT MENTIONING IT.

But we continue to look ahead and move forward (though a bit faster than I might like on that second bit). Just as 2009 was filled with many great firsts – Ollie’s first breath (good one), Ollie’s first smile (it was a sneaky one AND we got a picture of it), Ollie’s first laugh (priceless), Ollie’s first dirty diaper (how’d that get on this list?), Ollie’s first tooth (OK, you get the point) – 2010 promises just as many, such as Ollie’s first trip to the beach, Ollie’s first visit to Gotham City (pending a decent airline fare sale), Ollie’s first BIRTHDAY PARTY, Ollie’s first steps, and Ollie’s first intentional saying of the word “dada” while actually looking at and meaning to identify his biological father, not his mom, not Oscar the dog, not some random dude at Borders, and *definitely NOT* that stray piece of cheese he just knocked off the table and onto the floor.

(What? You were expecting a non-Ollie centric Christmas missive? I’d say I’m sorry to disappoint, but I’m trying to set a good example by not lying so … yeah.)

May you and all of yours have a fantastic and blissfully magical holiday season!

Justin, Heather, Ollie, and Oscar

(Don’t forget to drink some egg nog! mmm-MMM good!!)

A Cercopithecoid of an All Saints' Day

2009-11-01T01:51:00.000-05:00

Ollie's first Halloween went something like this:

on Devil's Night (sorry mom, Mischief Night just doesn't have the same ring to it. speaking of, i wore a thermal shirt with the logo from The Crow on it that day; sadly, i didn't get a single comment regarding its propriety. i guess i don't hang out with enough goths/emos/cutters.), we took Ollie to a pumpkin patch down the road; unfortunately the weather was feeling uncooperative, drizzling a steady mist and rendering the grounds a squishy bed of dirty, rain-soaked hay, but we sucked it up and used a blanket for him to sit on and actually got a few decent pictures. it was definitely a whirlwind photo shoot, though — we were in and out in a little over 10 minutes, with me screaming "yes, yes, yes ... no! NO!" like Austin Powers.

we wound up buying Oliver two costumes. the first one was an elephant, which we only bought because Heather couldn't find the one she really wanted, the monkey, in his size. luckily i was able to rectify this grevious dilemma, as you can see, and the mini-pachyderm subsequently was returned, unworn. for some reason, i particularly loved the banana attached to the one hand.

i was all set to take Ollie trick-or-treating — i even went so far as to procure him a head-of-Spider-Man candy bucket — but the weather truly was foul, a trick in its own right, and we kind of overdid it during the day. we did a lot of running around and took him to a little party in Heather's sister's neighborhood, and we were all three of us too worn out to bother battling the weather and dealing with the consequences Ollie's fatigue was likely to generate. next year dude, it's a promise. Papa will even dress up to take you.

i know last year i bombarded people (ok not really, but it looks good on paper, just work with me) with the stuff we were doing, eg. the Halloween Movie Festival, and so on. hard to believe it was supposed to be this time last year Heather and i were going to find out if we were having a boy or a girl. if you recall, Heather and i totally cheated and had a 3D ultrasound a couple weeks early. (hey, it was either that or let the not-knowing make Heather's head explode like that poor schmuck in Scanners whose bean Michael Ironside detonated with some heinous psychic dynamite. i think you'll agree i made the right choice.)

but this year, we just haven't done as much ... for reasons which should be obvious. we did get out and make the requisite trip to Netherworld; it was good, but last year's trip remains the pinnacle for me. my friend Tiffany was down from New York for a quick two-day trip and she let us drag her along. nothing else really to report there other than the lines were longer than ever and my thirst to know how much dough that places rakes in continues to go unslaked.

on the Movie Festival front, the proceedings were sparse, but of decent quality:

Grace was disturbing on several levels and well done for the most part, given it's modest budget and apparently quick production schedule. the story: a woman miscarries after a car accident but decides to take the fetus full term. when she gives "birth" ... the proverbial fit hits the shan, as they say. the first hour is strong and it's definitely worth a look, in spite of its somewhat silly ending, but clearly, it's not for the squeamish (if you want a taste of what you're in for, just search for the movie poster).

we checked out Zombieland (hi Pam!) in the theater, and while Shaun of the Dead is in no danger of being dethroned as the best romcom with zombies, it was loads of fun in its own right. sadly, i've yet to see Adventureland, so this was my first experience with Jesse Eisenberg after he achieved semi-"It" status (i remember him from The Emperor's Club, aka "Don't Call it Dead Poets Society or You'll Incur the Wrath of its Message Board Trolls"), and i found him to be suitably entertaining, although the "poor man's Michael Cera" tag does resonate a bit. but the real reason to see the movie is — what else? — Woody Harrelson. a badass hick zombie killer with a hankering for Twinkies that's as strong, if not stronger, as his hatred for the undead? who the hell else were they gonna get to play that role? naturally, Woody kills it with a pitch perfect performance. and surprisingly, a teenaged Little Miss Sunshine, Abigail Breslin, makes a nice transition here. (i thought about calling her Dakota Fanning 2.0, but that already feels played out.) and at this point i know it's probably impossible that the film's hilarious cameo hasn't been spoiled for you, but if you're still in the dark somehow ... you're in for a treat. (and i say that with full disclosure that i'm not even much of a fan of Mr. Cameo.)

lastly, we spun up Trick 'r Treat, a horror anthology which was obviously made by some people who saw Creepshow a few (too many?) times during their creatively formative years. (can't blame them there, i watched the hell out of it on cable when i was way too young to be doing so.) Warner Bros. has taken some heat over not giving the flick a proper theatrical release. apparently some fanboys got irate (big shocker) after the film got screened at some horror fests back on Halloween of '08 to some very good buzz, only the studio decided to shitcan the movie into direct-to-DVD hell. while it didn't make me go all gooey inside, i certainly enjoyed some of it. the anthology format is cool, complete with the comic book transitions, but sadly not all the threads are equally interesting or well-done. but there are a couple that are worth the price of admission, one in particular involving some kids and a school bus that really delivered the goods.

and with that, it's November, and the holiday season is upon us. stay tuned for the chronicles of Ollie's first Thanksgiving and the impending visit from Santa. (if you don't think i'm geeked out of my mind, then you obviously have never seen me at Christmas time, when i revert so far back into my childhood i'm basically a zygote.)

the Spidey equivalent of Lou Gherig's disease

2009-10-16T01:58:00.000-04:00

my company got bought back in September, and as such we recently entertained one of the new Big Cheeses (but, for the two people who'll actually get this CBI joke, sadly it was not the Cheese Man) for a three day visit. he's a former Microsoft big-wig; big-wig in the sense that he repeatedly referred to a certain Mr. Gates, aka the richest man in the US, simply as "Bill." (all righty then.) during his tenure he was the VP over some stuff you've probably heard of, like the launch of the Xbox (score), and Zune, Microsoft's so-called iPod Killer (fail). regardless of your stance on Microsoft, it cannot be denied that the guy's worked in the upper echelon of the IT industry for over two decades, and as such his resume is beyond impressive. anyway, long story short, i sat in on some training with him while he was here and learned a new word: webrot. now, if you look up webrot on Urban Dictionary, their definition is spending too much time "plugged in," aka web browsing, writing code, whatever. however, this guy's definition of webrot was when the information on a website is allowed to stagnate.

(coincidence that you're reading a new post on the Curtisphere? i'll let you decide.)

so here's the latest Olliewood dirt, with me (poorly) playing the role of Ted Casablanca:

→ Ollie has two sharp little protusions, aka TEETH, erupting through his lower gums. while they look cute and harmless, in reality they are jagged, bony needle-daggers just waiting to rend the flesh from an unsuspecting forearm or pierce through an innocent fingernail right down to the quick. want to guess what one of his favorite games is? clamping down on dad's thumb with the strength of ... wait, i have to get the context of this just right: remember the scene in Robocop when Bob Morton shakes hands with Robo's as-yet-unnattached arm and the tech says it can dole out 400 foot-pounds of pressure and could crush every bone in his hand?? sadly, i haven't been able to snap a picture of them yet, because any time you open his mouth to try and catch a peek, Ollie instictively sticks out his tongue, presumably to hide his newly razored gums from unsuspecting uncles, grandparents, and passersby so as not to unnecessarily winnow his pool of potential chewtoys. (the stinker.)

→ the progression to three full meals of regular food a day has taken place for the most part. we still occasionally run across the odd food that makes him do a near-Linda Blair — he can't quite make his head go the last 45 degrees for the full circle, but not for a lack of trying — the latest one being his formerly beloved pureed carrots. green beans and bananas seem to be permanent fixtures in the rotation. (wanna hear something truly horrifying? then come by our house when Ollie is eating bananas and you can listen to two mid-thirtysomethings singing the "let me hear you say this shit is bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S" refrain of Holla Back Girl.) and who comes up with some of these flavor "medleys" anyway? a pissed-off Professor Snape? (wait, that's redundant.) i mean, peaches, potatoes, and squash?? why not just add some lacewing flies and boomslang skin while you're at it.

→ Ollie weighed 17 lbs 9.5 oz and was nearly 28 inches long at his six month check-up. he took his immunizations like Drago getting his steroid injection in Rocky IV (ok, not quite, but close), but the best bit was when the pediatrician asked us if Ollie was doing much babbling yet. i turned to my son and said, "Ollie, can you say 'blah blah blah' for the doctor?" and no shit, right on cue, Ollie said, "blah blah blah." i seriously would pay $1000 for a Time Turner so i could go back and get it on video. (ok that's two HP references this post, did someone slip some pumpkin juice in my chai latte this morning? speaking of pumpkin juice, i'm pretty sure it's going to be on the menu at the Three Broomsticks when Universal opens its Harry Potter theme park in 2010. as is butterbeer. i wonder which one will be more hideous.)

→ sitting up is going well, and Ollie can hold himself upright for long stretches before faceplanting into anything. if you hold his hands, he will pull himself from a supine position to standing in one only-slightly-herky-jerky motion. we've had a couple of people say that he might just skip crawling altogether and commence with the walking. there aren't many crawlers in his class at school, but most of them are walking, so it might not be far-fetched. this fills me with fear. not fear for Ollie, necessarily, but there is a little of that. no, rather it is fear for my possessions. and for Oscar. lord only knows how much payback that kid has stored up for every un-asked-for lick in the face and diaper sniff, but i'd set the over/under on collective beard/ear/fur/tail yanks at 100 ... and take the over.

→ the giggling is still somewhat on lockdown, but i can coax it out of him .... if i'm willing to toss him up in the air and let him freefall a few feet before catching him again. needless to say, this causes no small bit of consternation, not just amongst my immediate family, but with complete strangers as well. i did it somewhere, maybe a Wal-Mart parking lot, or maybe it was at O'Charley's, and drew some serious WTF glances from a few people who witnessed my son flying high through the air and laughing his head off.

→ and finally ... there is a disturbance in the Force. Ollie has decided it's time to bust out the Jedi Mind Trick and ply mama and papa with it. relentlessly. sadly, it is RIDICULOUSLY effective. i try channeling my inner Jabba the Hutt, which shamefully meets with only middling success. he started things off with this pathetic little fake cough, a-huh a-huh, and when that just made us laugh, he started working on his pout, bottom lip aquiver, turned up the juice on his most pitiful wail, and finally he's taken his body's vast moisture supply by rerouting his drool and turning it into tears. and unless you want there to be an even bigger delay between this post and the next one, i'm going to refrain from commenting on its efficaciousness regarding Heather. (translation: in school terms, he'd be shattering the bell curve and pissing off all his classmates.)

no, i don't use a cattle prod on my kid, and Ollie doesn't need a huge pilla to cry himself to sleep

2009-08-20T02:18:00.000-04:00

there's a rumor going around that sending Ollie to the Goddard School has effectively strip-mined my brain of its creativity and infinitesimal writing ability. this is unequivoaclly not the case. i'm just a lazy butthole who decided to blow the dust off his Procastination PhD for a spell.

(glad we got that settled.)

anyway, on to what you came here for. Ollie hit 20 weeks this past Tuesday, and there are all kinds of goings on to report. he's rolling over, both back to front and front to back. you can see that he's thinking about sitting up and occasionally makes an attempt, but never really gets much beyond that, at least not until one of us pulls up on both his arms to give him the momentum he needs.

the thing he does most often is forcefully arch his back and throw his head to look over his left shoulder, something i imagine you might do if someone electrocuted you for a split-second; however, he does this when he's both happy and pissed off, so i have no idea what it means or what he's attempting to accomplish by performing such a manuever. Heather thinks he's doing it just because he can and has learned to repeat it. i'm going with the version that he's seeing imaginary hot chicks constantly streaming past him, and he's just determined to ogle them all, even if he gives himself whiplash in the process.

the bummer is when he pulls this while you're holding him and perhaps not paying as close attention to him as you should be. Ollie is a pretty strong baby, and he's almost pushed himself clear out of my arms several times. luckily, i've never really come close to dropping him, but i'm now constantly on my guard against him doing The Body Heave so he won't faceplant on the floor and/or otherwise brain himself with his little pet move.

Ollie was a shade over 15 pounds at his four month doctor visit, and that was a couple weeks ago, so he's probably closer to 16 than 15 by now. he's also getting lengthy at over 25 inches, but his head remains tiny — i don't recall the measurement, but he's only in something like the 14th percentile. secretly, i have no problem with this; i don't think babies should have gargantuan craniums they have to haul about, or have heads that look like oranges on toothpicks or, even worse, bear even the remotest resemblence to Sputnik. (HEAD! PAPER! NOW!)

speaking of him hitting four months, to celebrate, we took advantage of Bank of America's Musuems on Us promotion (if you're a customer, you ought to check it out) and went to Zoo Atlanta. the hope was to replicate our awesome trip to the GA Aquarium when he hit three months, and while it was no disaster, Ollie did not dig the Zoo anywhere near as much as he dug the Aquarium (evident in the pic below, where he's clearly not looking at the pandas). he did make some new friends in the Menzies, however. (yo John — Dragon*Con FTMFW!)

he's also drooling more and more every day, which can only mean teething is imminent. i don't know how the little bugger doesn't dehydrate and turn into a onesie filled with calcium dust. seriously, we should just dangle him over Lake Lanier and he'd refill whatever's still missing from the drought. the kid drowns bibs like Kristen Stewart burns through weed. (does homegirl ever NOT look stoned? send me a link, i dare you.) i am simultaneously looking forward to him popping his first tooth and cowering in fear over what it will do to his mood and sleep schedule. holding these two contradictory thoughts at the same time would normally make me a genius, but then Baudelaire had to go and add that qualifying bit about not losing your mind at the end, and in that regard, i make no guarantees. (thanks a lot Charles. stupid French git.)

another big development that i almost forgot to mention: Ollie is eating cereal. and he's not loving it. the first couple of times i think we made it a bit too thick — it looked more like Waffle House grits than the milky soup it resembles like now — and while he didn't quite do the Tom-Hanks-eating-and-then-immediately-spitting-out-the-caviar move from Big, it was pretty damn close. he just kept making "what is this gloop you keep repeatedly shoveling into my cakehole, and what exactly do you expect me to do with it?" faces. he's gotten a little better since those initial attempts, but i have to dance around and do my very poor man's Jim Carrey act, making all kinds of idiotic, overly exaggerated chewing/swallowing/isn't-that-yummy noises and facial animations. strangely, he also seems to do better when i beatbox, which i find hysterical to no end.

lastly, Ollie has started giggling. he's VERY stingy with it, but if you luck out and manage to hit on the right thing, it is truly a wonderful and hilarious thing to behold. i'm dying to get video of it, but, given its infrequency, i'd probably have better luck catching a glimpse of the Loch Ness Monster tooling around and pulling Sasquatch behind him so the big lug can water-ski in his wake while Elvis, suffering from the Stigmata, cheers them on from the bank as he sits under a tree sporting a patch of bark that is the spitting image of the Virgin Mary.

Could you please just stop talking; Ollie channels his inner Aquaman

2009-06-27T01:44:00.000-04:00

as today marks the end of Heather's maternity leave, i took the day off so we could all do something fun together before Heather goes back to work and Ollie starts attending The Goddard School on Monday.

(cue the Adagio for Strings.)

we decided to put my new annual passes to the Georgia Aquarium to good use. i gave Heather an annual pass for Christmas the year it opened, but somehow i wound up never going with her, so this was my first trip. everything i'd heard on the Aquarium has been mixed; Heather definitely prefers the one in Chattanooga, TN, and my friend Don will inundate you with "the building has no flow" commentary for hours if you let him. so my expectations were pretty low, which i think led to me thoroughly enjoying myself. true, there is nothing special or even truly functional about the layout of the building itself, but the exhibit wings are perfectly fine, and the multiple tanks, with several walk-through tunnels where the fish swim around and above you, are excellent.

we sat at the window to the beluga whale tank for a bit, and Ollie was fascinated by them. every time one of the whales swam up and rubbed itself against the glass, he would start "talking" to it. our pediatrician is convinced Ollie has inherited Heather's excellent eyesight, because he's really paying attention to everything around him, he can follow you all around the room, at distances i figured he'd start to lose track of you. he also liked the behemoth whale sharks — they easily dwarf every other fish in the main tank — so we bought him a stuffed animal version and named it Trixie, after one of the three they have in captivity there.

unfortunately, our interaction with other people at the Aquarium was minimal and largely uninteresting. there was one vaguely amusing thing that happened in that regard while i stood in the will-call line to redeem my two ticket vouchers. the queue was lengthy and slow-moving, and after standing there for a good fifteen minutes, i turned to the couple behind me and started talking to them. they both wore funky and expensive-looking running shoes, so i asked them if they were running the Peachtree next weekend. the dude just gave me his best Keanu (in other words, a blank stare just shy of drooling on himself), and i took this to mean i am either extraordinarily frightening in person, or perhaps simply a miracle of such ugliness that i'm capable of inducing spontaneous glossophobia.

this left his wife to respond, and all she could manage was an obviously reluctant, "we don't live here." i feign ignorance to their "would you mind not talking to us and/or FORNICATING OFF" vibe and forge ahead, hoping they'll warm up. i ask where they're from, and she says Charlotte, and i say, "really? that's where my wife was born." her response? "oh." then ... *crickets.* nee nee ... nee nee ... nee nee. well then. i promptly stuck my nose back in the book i fortunately didn't leave at home.

(the lesson, as always: never ever, and i mean NEVER EVER, go anywhere without something good to read. i took a book on a job interview once — a Jordan book, natch, The Fires of Heaven — and it was a good thing, too, because the parade of JERKS conducting the interview made me sit there for at least 45 minutes after i arrived (and yes, i was on time) before cranking things up. so John, Nelson, if you're reading this ... i know it's been a long time, but just WTF was that all about?)

when we took a lunch break, we wound up sitting next to a couple with a baby in the cafe, and the kid looked like she'd crawled right out of an anime comic. her eyes were gigantic and her face was round, and she sported a hilarious off-center topknot. i did find a small amount of intrigue in the fact that they were from New Orleans, which is where we found out we were pregnant with Oliver. Heather had gone to the bathroom to unspackle the poop from Ollie's buttcrack and feed him (which meant she'd be in there a while), so even after my disastrous failure in the will-call line, i summoned up my courage, got back up on the horse, and started chatting with them. the wife/mom wore her hair in a retro swept-up 60s 'do, but sadly it didn't look cool on her. she was young, but it made her look old, not to mention like a reject from a That Thing You Do! casting call. aloof initially, she eventually warmed up a little, which is more than i can say for her sis, who they were in town visiting. i think the sister was getting annoyed because she thought i was ninja-ing her "auntie time," because the kid kept looking at me instead of her. again, i'm coming back to the ugly thing, because freakish things easily attract the attention of children. the dad didn't seem to mind at all, and he was spacey and reminded me of Fran Kranz, who plays the tech whiz Topher on Dollhouse.

look for another post after the trauma of Day Care: Week One wears off.

joyous patriarchal 24-hour period

2009-06-23T01:52:00.000-04:00

thanks to everyone who wished me a happy father's day and to anyone who made even the smallest contribution in making my first one such a great one. i got plenty of good cards/emails/Facebook messages, a few cool blu-rays (via some Barnes & Noble gift cards from Eric and Tammy, more on that in a bit), a pro photog session for the family, two season passes to the GA Aquarium, and a heinous Jeep jogging stroller from Heather and Ollie (special thanks to Robin, too). that thing is outrageous — it has a stop watch-odometer combo, so you can tell precisely how big a pansy you are when you run; it has an iPod/CD player docking tray and more speakers than some home theaters, so you and your progeny can simultaneously enjoy your favorite tuneage; it has real tires and a suspension system, so Junior doesn't get shaken like a rumpshaker and subsequently hoark his milk/puffs/cereal into his lap when you're two miles from the nearest baby wipe; frankly, the only thing it ISN'T is a nice stretch job with a TV and a bar. can't wait to load Ollie up for the maiden voyage. maybe i'll even find an old-style glass bottle of Coke and smash it on the rear wheel for a proper send-off.

speaking of Barnes & Noble, i had an ... interesting experience there over the weekend. like i said, my brother Eric gave me a B&N gift card for Father's Day, but i've had one from my sister-in-law Tammy since Christmas, but i've never been able to find anything to use it on. the main reason for this is i'm a stupendously cheap bastard, and B&N is probably the most overpriced bookstore on the planet, but having a gander at their tomes and librams is like cruising the $1 store compared to trolling their video department. i mean, my GOD. so even though, technically, i'm not really paying $39.99 for that blu-ray of Slumdog Millionaire, it still FEELS like i'm paying $39.99, and by the holy powers of DVD Price Search, there's just no way that's gonna happen. ever.

but there i am browsing titles anyway, trying to keep a lid on the roiling sea of nausea in my gut after peeping a $130 pricetag on the Godfather blu-ray box set, which you can easily find for around $50 EVEN AT BEST BUY, and this Asian kid is manning the desk, and after a few minutes i can't take it anymore. i go up to him and say, "can i ask you a blunt question?" he says sure. i want to know what his employee discount is. he says 20%. i say, "does that even come close to making it worth buying anything here?" he says not even. dude then launches into how he's going to grad school and he can find slightly used text books online for about one-sixth of what it would cost to buy them through the store even after the markdown, and i'm nodding my head, and we start talking about DVD and blu-ray, and he says he would never buy anything in a store without checking online first, and now i'm nodding my head so vigorously it's about to fly off and land in the science fiction aisle. but then we start talking about the future of retail, and that's when he unceremoniously drops the following sonic nugget on me: "yeah, when people of my generation get to be your age, i doubt you'll even be able to buy movies in a store like this." um, hold the phone a sec. am i FRAGGING NINETY or something?!? exactly what about me screams GERIATRIC??? ok, i'm not rocking skinny jeans or wearing eyeliner or chipped nail polish. i'm not setting off the metal detector with multiple piercings. i don't have any ink, visible or otherwise. i'm not listening to my iPod with my hoodie up in the middle of June. and my cellphone isn't surgically attached to my hand and i can't text 199 words a minute. yes, i have some grey hair. but it's not like i'm Clint Eastwood's long lost twin here. AND i was wearing a Star Wars t-shirt! i mean, SWEET HAYSOOSE!! after that i think he sensed my nonplusseddom, because the conversation died and shriveled up faster than an aninaml carcass filmed with time-lapse photography, with homeboy quickly vacating like he'd just dropped the mother of all SBDs and didn't want to be anywhere near when that unlucky someone caught the first whiff.

and now, because i'm a total butthole, i put the latest pictures of Ollie at the end, the theory being you'd have to suffer through my rambling diatribe to reach them.

(just humor me and pretend it worked.)

Inadvertently pissing off Allah and the continued genius of the House That Jobs Built

2009-06-09T01:10:00.000-04:00

i've started taking Oliver with me when i walk Oscar, because Ollie loves to be outside. at first i wore him in one of our (many) baby slings, but it's too hot for that crap now and will only get hotter, so now i just toss him in the stroller ("nothing but stroller!") and take him on a ride. at first, Oscar was a bit bummed, since, now that we're down to one dog again, he'd gotten back to feeling special as The Only One Daddy Walks. but now all three of us have fun — i listen to whatever's currently wetting my whistle on my iPod (this morning it was the Definitve Edition soundtrack to The Terminator), Ollie kicks/squirms/drools/sleeps at his leisure, while Oscar indescriminantly sprays every vertical surface in sight, barks at anything that moves, and drops the occasional yard bomb. so yesterday we passed a neighbors' house as they were pulling out of their garage, the mom and the dad and their son Josh packed into their mini-van, and i wheeled Ollie over to say hi since they'd yet to meet him. they're an Indian family around the corner from us, and the dad is still very culture conscious — i've never seen him in pants, he's always wearing sarongs which i think are called dhoti. anyway, i lifted Ollie up for them to see, and the mom asked what his name is, and i told them. upon hearing this, the dad, who up until then had been doing what i suppose for him passes for smiling, dropped all pretense of attempting to approximate joy with his lips and said, "what did you say your son's name is?" this time i said Ollie, as in short for Oliver, and his face maybe relaxed by an iota. he said, "i thought you said you named your son Ali. Ali is a Muslim name. and you. are not. Muslim." well. the mom glanced at him, her eyes a little wide, but then quickly looked at the floor. i said bye and returned Ollie to his stroller and walked away, apparently quite lucky to have escaped with our skins intact.

Ollie had a big first this weekend — we took him to see his first movie. the three of us caught an AMCinema showing of Up in Disney Digital 3D (and while i love me some Di$ney, branding films with "Disney Digital 3D," as if somehow that's superior to "just regular" digital 3D, is ludicrous). he did really well; he actually watched the screen for a little bit (or maybe he was just looking in its general direction), and then buh-bye, it was nap time. Ollie really likes ambient noise, but he does have a volume threshold, which the movie exceeded a couple times, but overall we're considering it a big success.

as for the movie itself, it's getting tougher and tougher to come up with superlatives when talking about Pixar and their films. Up is their 10th studio release, and if you're scoring at home, they're sitting at either 9.5/10 or 10/10, depending on which way you lean with respect to Cars. while i neither agree with the notion nor even allow the argument can be made that it's better than WALL-E — and there's no shame in that — i do think Up is a great flick and that it is natural to lump them together in coversation, since both films are funny and sad, heartwarming and heartbreaking, and unconventionally conventional in their storytelling approach. feel free to ignore the idiots complaining about how the film opens (just like they did with WALL-E, although the beef with Up has to do with subject matter, not style), or that it's not kid friendly. that is bullshit. yes, younger kids might ask about something that happens at the beginning, but if you're that afraid to field questions from your children about things they've never seen or don't understand, then taking them to the movies, where, even if you know the basic plot beferhand, you never know what might unfold, is probably a bad idea to begin with. just grab the whole family and go enjoy Pixar's latest masterpiece. oh, and the short that precedes it, Partly Cloudy, is right up there with For the Birds and Presto. hilarious.

Dissing L.C., Heidi, and Audrina while hoping Brett Ratner doesn't read the Curtisphere

2009-06-03T23:35:00.000-04:00

couple of big milestones for the O-dog this week. he hit the nine week mark on yesterday, which is cool, since it means he's still alive and all that. but today he had a doctor's appointment and got his first three immunization shots. he handled the first one like a champ, but saying he didn't care for the other two is kinda like saying the girls on The Hills are skanky — ranks pretty high on the No Shit-ometer.

Ollie likes to do a lot of different things these days. there's all the obvious stuff, like copiously filling his diapers, occasionally ripping off a big burp or fart, putting the pinch on one of mommy's gazongas, and getting naked in order to air out his crotch. he also likes to gurgle and coo when we talk to him, especially early in the morning (naturally when mama and papa are both all squinty eyed and able to muster about as much intelligent conversation as he can). he also likes to blow lots of bubbles and play on his Neptune mat, but i think his absolute favorite thing to do is kick. good mood or bad, he'll sit there and just kick his legs all day long. and woe be to anything that gets in range of his feet, because the little buggar's pins are already pretty strong. (and no, he hasn't inadvertently gotten me in the package yet ... but i know it's only a matter of time.)

Heather's sister Robin was in town all last week, and she graciously agreed to watch Oliver so Heather and i could make our triumphant return to the real world, which is inhabited with magnificent things like artery-clogging buttered popcorn, ice cold Cherry Coke from the fountain, and the marvelous wonder that is AMCinema at Discover Mills. we joined the vast majority of nerds, er, folks who've seen and loved the new Star Trek flick by ubiquitous creator J.J. Abrams. (no, Don, i still haven't watched Lost yet. but i will, so please, just settle down.) the movie really had everything you could want from a Star Trek reboot (a term that is rapidly acquiring a seriously negative connotation amongst the film "congnoscenti") — it's epic in scope, has multiple nods, some overt and some surreptitious, to both the series and the old films, sporting a great mix of familiarity while breaking new ground, but most important to me, it's exciting and vibrant and fun. the action is intense; we're talking balls-to-the-wall gangbusters right out of the gate, easing off the gas only on occasion, allowing us to catch our collective breath after it's pushed us precariously close to the brink of asphyxiation, before dropping the hammer right back down again. the plot and the script have taken a bit of heat, the latter more than the former, but i enjoyed the storyline, and if any of the dialogue was grevious or clunky, i didn't notice. even so, it would be ridiculous to contend that the reaction has been anything but phenomenal, which, if it means more cool flicks like this one, is a win-win for everyone invovled. Star Trek deserves a spot in both the current cinematic consciousness and popular culture, if for no other reason it will beget a new generation of Trekkies for us to openly mock at DragonCon. i'm sure there are some who'll decry the "dumbing down" of the new Trek, but to me, the real debate Abrams' revelation of a film should spark is this: will it, in any way, shape, or form, influence a Star Wars remake? if there's a term worse than blasphemy, i'm sure that is the word the original drive-in generation of Star Wars fans would use regarding the thought of such a notion, even if Hollywood didn't have raging reboot fever and the subsequent surging backlash against "reimagining" everything in sight weren't the current rage on every film site and blog.

however, there have been rumblings amongst some fans that a remake at least should be considered, and while i think it's mainly because most of them want to cleanse their mouths of the lingering poop taste left behind by the Prequels, part of it probably stems from 30+ years of Star Wars and Star Trek fanboys going head to head over which franchise is superior. it's a rivarly, and even though it doesn't play out the same way as it does in the world of sports because the dynamics are different, the spirit is absolutely the same. and suffice it to say, the Trekkies definitely have the upper hand and are riding high on the hog for the moment. and rightfully so; it's deserved.

but remaking Star Wars?? think about how pissed the diehards get over even little changes and bad decisions concerning properties they hold near and dear. anyone remember the small but vocal minority who got all steamed at Sam Raimi and co. for deciding to shitcan Peter's homemade wrist shooters and make his webs organic? (of course, there's a counter point here: does anyone bitch about his webs being organic anymore? no. because that film is a staggering Albert Pujols no-doubt-about-it BOMB to dead center field.) but on the other hand, this isn't tweaking an admittedly minor detail, like changing Obi Wan's lightsaber color from blue to yellow, or swapping the shoulder over which Chewbacca wears his bandolier in the galaxy far, far away. imagine if they hired Zac Efron to be the new Luke Skywalker? or Kirsten Dunst for Princess Leia? or Matthew McCoughnahey or *GULP* Keanu Reeves as the next Han Solo? i can almost guarantee the internet would eat itself alive over the casting alone, not to mention the changes to the storyline as they began to leak out. you think the uproar over Jar Jar Binks was heinous (ok, bad example), or the hatred for the awkward, utterly inert romance between Padme and Anakin was bad? we're talking cookies and ice cream compared to the online revolt that would ensue if they really started dicking around with things.

and we haven't even talked about the most important part: who the HELL has the balls to direct this thing???

that's why, if there's any property that should receive immunity to the remake wave, it's Star Wars. (well, that and probably Lord of the Rings.) notice i said "should receive immunity" and not "is immune." but honestly, i don't think it would ever happen. The Beard has kept a strangle hold on his intellectual properties for over three DECADES. (and hey, it sure has paid off, to the tune of $3 BILLION and counting.) at least, a remake'll never happen while Lucas is still alive. but after that ... all bets are probably off.

wishing for Carsenio's enlongated index finger and 1985 footage of Meathead

2009-05-26T02:04:00.000-04:00

not sure about you, but my Memorial Day Weekend came and went with little to no fanfare. which isn't to say nothing happened. Heather and i took Ollie to Mercer University on Saturday to witness Heather's good friend Joel graduate from the McAfee School of Theology with his Masters of Divinity degree. the crowd held a few things of interest that i couldn't help noticing. there was a large faction of folks who largely sat together and wore similar t-shirts ... and most of whom were highly and visibly tattooed. some of them were religious in nature, while some of them decidedly were not. i found this fascinating, since i always thought the Bible contained something about not desecrating your own flesh or marking your body with tattoos. (of course, "desecrating your flesh" is wide open to interpretation, but not marking your bodies with tattoos ... ehhh, not so much.) two of these tattooed attendees in particular were something to behold. i'm assuming they were a couple, since the guy spent the entire ceremony with his arm encircling the girl, even spending a lot of time resting his head on her shoulder. but above and beyond his fully sleeved arms and the ink peeking from her neckline and the legs of her jeans, the reason they were interesting to watch was this: for as fervent as the guy obviously was in clutching her to him, she appeared to be equally repulsed by his clinginess, like he was some hideous tumor that no matter how many times she had removed, it always grew back. which begged the question, why didn't she just tell him to step off?

they gave out a few awards, including one for the Valedictorian, although they didn't call it that, instead it was The Award for the Person with the Highest Cumulative Grade Point Average. which i thought was hilarious, and when the girl with the Highest Cumulative Grade Point Average hit the stage to collect her plaque, sadly it did not read, "i am a nerd." when it came time for the graduates to actually walk the stage and collect their diplomas, the dean made the obligatory request that people hold their applause and "other means of showing enthusiasm" for any particular graduate until the end of the ceremony. after which, i promptly turned to Heather and said, "i give it 10 people before someone does something ... enthusiastic." unfortunately it turned out to be more like 25, but it was still a doozy, with some over-excited mom screaming, "WHOOOOOO!! YEAHHHHHHH!!!" into the gymnasium's near-dead silence. almost as funny were two guys sitting near the aisle on the row in front of us. homeboy furthest from me kept raising the roof, whereas the cat nearest me was about 15 years too late in auditioning to be Arsenio Hall's replacement - dude had the twirling fist pump DOWN. and they must have known half the graduating class, because they were some busy brothers.

Ollie just sat and chilled (literally, it was colder than a meatlocker in that gym) through the whole thing, which i'm choosing to look at as a dry run for our next big step — taking him to the movies.

speaking of movies, i managed to catch a couple and see bits and pieces of a few others. Eric and i watched Below, which was a pretty good submarine actioner-cum-ghost story flick that sure looked expensive, but i don't ever remember it getting a theatrical release. (if IMDB is to be believed, it cost over $80 million to make and was dumped on a pitiful 168 screens its opening weekend, making a little over $200k. ouch. somebody got fired over that one i bet.) David Twohy shot this in between Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick and it's littered with guys you'll recognize but can't place or remember, which is appropriate since none of them are really memorable That Guys (with the possible exception of Nick Chinlund). you'll probably have to Netflix it, not sure i've ever seen it run on cable.

other than that it was a mish-mash, channel-surfing affair. not sure if Spike coughed up the rights or not, but MTV ran the original Star Wars trilogy in HD on Saturday and Sunday. i caught the last hour of Star Wars — i tuned in just as Han was delivering his classic "We had a slight weapons malfunction, but, uh, everything's perfectly all right now. We're fine, we're all fine here now, thank you. How are you?" Heather was in bed next to me trying to read a book, and i think i was annoying her; i kept quoting lines at varying volumes and oft times in character, and i caught her giving me The Stinkeye on multiple occasions. unfortunately, Ollie was asleep in his bassinet, but i'm hoping he osmotically absorbed at least a taste of it.

we did watch the finale of The Office, which was really good in some respects, but, and this sounds like blasphemy given how uniformly excellent this season has been, i'm wondering how much longer they can possibly maintain the quality. as good as it was, the finale did show a crack or two, but more in the vein of unaddressed plot threads, which is really only mildly annoying, but it's there nonetheless. they're just dragging out a couple of the storylines for too long.

we also watched the season premier of So You Think You Can Dance. i don't care if it makes me lame, i can't emphasize enough how great this show is and how much Heather and i love to watch it. it's infinitely cooler than just about anything on TV and hands-down the best reality show, easily dusting American Idol and the lingering stale fart that is Dancing with the Stars (although a couple of ex-SYTYCD-ers were on as pros this season). i will say, however, that to truly appreciate it, you need to watch it in HDTV. the breadth of styles the contestants perform, not to mention some of the incredible choreographers they get to create routines, is pretty heinous. also, having Cat Deely, aka the anti-Ryan Seacrest, as your host is just a bonus.

i've been jonesing to revisit Stand By Me for a while, but just have never taken the time to sit down and spin it up. last week i drank an extra Mello Yello and stayed up late with one of the greatest Stephen King adaptations ever made. i've always associated myself with Gordie; he was a writer, a bit sensitive, unsure of himself and his place in the world. Chris always reminded me of my friend Rod, the guy who would always pump you up when you needed it, but who also wasn't afraid to call you on your bullshit and keep you in line. everyone always laughs about Jerry O'Connell being "the fat kid from Stand By Me," but should they really be laughing anymore? dude has had a lengthy Hollywood career, he got to freestyle a song in a Cameron Crowe flick ("Cush-lash! Cush-lash!"), and he married/knocked up Rebecca Romijn for crying out loud. (although do you think that still happens if she doesn't waste several of her prime years with Douchebag Hall of Famer John Stamos? probably not.) it's easy these days to rag on Corey Feldman, but he's just as integral a part of this movie as anyone; Teddy was a galvanizing force for the four friends in the film, since you got the feeling none of them were ever sure what he was going to do next, or what might set him off. and just how great a punk is Keifer Sutherland in this? the making-of on the DVD has tons of great stuff, but feels far from complete. at least they don't shy away from River Phoenix's death, but certainly they could have plumbed those depths a little bit further. and the interviews are totally retrospective. there is nothing from before or during filming, or just prior to its release. i want 1986-86 clips of Wheaton, Phoenix, Feldman, and O'Connell talking about getting to drop F-bombs, about Keifer Sutherland bullying them (which director Rob Reiner encouraged to make thier scenes together feel more authentic), and so on. i want an archive interview with Reiner, who was my age at the time in his late 30s, talking about the challenges of adapating this then-obscure Stephen King story, which turned into a seminal coming-of-age film and a surprise sleeper hit a year later. but after rewatching it for the Nth time, i was simultaneously glad that i still enjoyed it as much as ever ... and yet also worried that, when Ollie is finally old enough to appreciate and understand it, i might no longer have either the nostalgia or the reverence for it that i have now.

(nah. that'll never happen. pinky swear.)

i am become death

2009-05-15T00:29:00.000-04:00

while i may not manage to destroy any worlds, i'm definitely at risk of eviscerating my esophagus. i am greivously ill, more sick than i can recall being in a loooong time, maybe ever, with sarcophagus-splintering sneezes and a wracking cough that would weaken the knees and bowels of the most wretched of warlocks. and i can't stay home since we're in the middle of a release at work, so there is absolutely no upside. i'm not even enjoying the shredded remains of my voice, which, last time i got sick and achieved a similar i-just-gargled-a-rock-quarry's-worth-of-gravel state, allowed me to record The Greatest Outgoing Voicemail in History. (right Don?)

Ollie is a bit under the weather as well, but i'm not sure if i got it from him or vice versa, although i tend to rule out the latter, since he's only got a touch of congestion and his cough isn't remotely approaching my sternum-shattering hack. Heather took him to the doctor on Monday, and i'm unfortunately following suit, even though i was desperately hoping to avoid going. i hate taking antibiotics. i hate taking any prescribed medication, for that matter, with one exception: my Nexium gets a free pass, since it lets me eat anything i want (except for my beloved Junior Mints — *sniff*).

well, i'm only about two months or two decades late to the party, depending on how you look at it, but i finished reading Watchmen and am finally ready to comment on both the published work and director Zack Snyder's brilliant adaptation.

as i've mentioned, i'm not sure what caused me to put down Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' seminal graphic novel, and honestly, i'm a bit embarrassed that it took me this long to return to it. (although, i do have a history of possessing some rather large holes in my nerd and filmgeek cred. i finally knocked Watchmen off my list, but i've never read Miracleman, or worked my way through Crisis on Infinite Earths, or been consumed by the Dark Phoenix Saga. for the longest time i had never seen Jaws, which was downright criminal, and i've still never seen Chinatown, or either of the Godfather sequels, or more than a handful of Hitchcock's efforts.)

both the comic and the film have their haters, just like there are droves of dual devotees, those who prefer one over the other, and then there are those who feel like Moore does, that Snyder should be burned in effigy on the Warner Bros. lot for even entertaining the idea of blaspheming his most famous work, much less actually filming it and audaciously releasing the finished product in all its heresy for the world to see. and if you fall in either the first or last group described above, i'm not sure what to tell you, other than you'll probably want to stop reading now.

you shouldn't need any commentary from me to figure out that the comic rules. 20+ years of not only drooling fanboys, but loads of respect from even the prickly literary community, including a spot on TIME's 2005 All-TIME 100 Greatest Novels list, ought to suffice. but a summary of my own feelings would go something like this:

Watchmen is a story, not just about superheroes, but about their value and validity in the modern world, about the dysfunction inherent in choosing to become one, and ultimately about the societal dangers of implicitly trusting them and allowing them to operate unchecked. Moore's writing is a master-class in paying homage while being original, in creating a story that's brimming with layered subtext yet remains imminently readable, in celebrating the history of comics while standing the medium on its venerated head and making it tapdance on the ceiling. and do you want to hear the sick part? the MFer KNEW what he was in the midst of creating. he even makes a non-cryptic reference to the fact in one of the issues!

(side note: in an interview with Wired magazine, Moore discussed (at length) his views on the current state of comic books, the fans who consume them, and Watchmen's influence on the industry. while discussing his post-Watchmen experimentation with the medium, he drops the following sonic nugget:

"Some of the things we did on Promethea were so smugly clever that I'm still basking in the radiance three or four years later."

while i recognize the inherent prickdom required to make such a statement, much less in a universally accessible online forum ... i find myself desparately wishing for just ONE moment in my own life where i could make the exact same claim.)

to me, the film's greatest accomplishment was it's near-flawless reproduction of the look and feel of the comic. from Rorshach's mask to Dan's workshop to Archie to Dr. Manhattan and on down the line, the production values are simply sublime. a huge dollop of the credit should go to artist Dave Gibbons, who's work on the series appears subtle at first, but the cinematic feel and composition of his art is undeniable. that Zack Snyder admitted to attempting to incorporate as many recognizable shots from the comic into the film as he could is proof enough of that.

as such, Snyder took quite a bit of heat for being too slavish to the source material — the age-old adaptation argument — but regardless of your stance on that, clearly capturing the spirit of the work is the important thing, and on that front, Snyder more than delivered the goods. he not only made a film out of something people long thought to be unfilmable, the film he made is also legitimately great.

i had someone complain to me that he didn't feel any emotional connection to any of the characters. i was fairly stunned by that. ok, so maybe if you emotionally connect with Rorshach, you might want to seek some professional counseling. but how could you not be involved with Jon's metamorphasis into Dr. Manhattan? or the conflict in Laurie's life, with Jon and her mother and the Comedian, and her subsequent importance to Dan? i guess we can just agree to disagree.

that same person also griped that the movie neutered one of the story's mysteries, the revelation of who the bad guy is. it should be obvious i won't spoil it, but my counter is that the heroes uncover his identity at almost exactly the same point in the film as they do in the comic. the difference is, after the reveal, the graphic novel gives you more background on the villain than you get in the movie, but i don't see how that can be construed as jacking up the whodunit part of the yarn.

the two endings are quite different; the film's is a little more conventional, and while the graphic novel's is more interesting, i think it would have been harder to pull off on the big screen — it's nature is just better suited to a comic book. however, i would have appreciated the effort of trying to make it work in the flick. but changing the ending made it easier for Snyder and the filmmakers to streamline the plot, since there were scattershot elements included in a handful of issues that directly tied into the denouement.

i am fully convinced that not having read the comic before seeing the movie made me enjoy and appreciate both works more. i'm more convinced than ever that that is the correct order of consumption, not just with Watchmen, but with any lit-to-film adaptation.

Thanks Mom

2009-05-10T12:47:00.000-04:00

hi mom. it's me, ollie. you might think it's a little strange that i'm able to type you this letter, but dad has been teaching me to use the Force when you're not around, and i guess i've gotten pretty good.

i just wanted to say thank you for everything you do for me. i know i can't always express my gratitude in ways that you understand, but i do try to make your favorite face as often as i can.

i'm excited to see what's in store for us as a family. there are so many things that i'm dying to do. i can't wait to draw you a picture, to pick you a flower, to go on a picnic. i can't wait for you and daddy to take me to the movies and to the museum, to the aquarium and to the zoo. i'm so ready for us to have fun together that it makes me squirm (which you may have noticed).

i'm also eager to grow and to learn, because i know you have so many interesting and wonderful things to teach me. i'm ready to be a sponge and soak it all in, and i'm looking forward to just talking with you, about everything under the sun, the sky, and the moon.

but most of all, i'm just glad to be here. i know you've waited a long time for me to come, and how hard it was for you. but i'm here now, momma. i'm here, and i love you so very much. you're everything i dreamed you would be, everything and more.

happy mother's day. all my love, ever and always,

oliver

p.s. tell dad that i'll say "Star Wars" just as soon as i'm able. i know he's anxious, but him whining about it on a daily basis won't make it happen any faster.

Overdue post and pics

2009-05-08T20:30:00.000-04:00

Ollie hit the five week mark in what we hope is a 5200 week run. as they say in baseball, it's a marathon, not a sprint. although you could have fooled me; the five weeks have gone by like *that*.

we took him to his month check-up the other day (a week late, but whatever), and he weighed in at a colossal (for him) 9 lbs., 10.5 oz. he's almost 22 inches long, and he's moved from being in the 8th percentile in terms of size to the 38th.

so, in celebration of his growth spurt, i thought i'd rattle off a few of the things i've learned since Oliver was born (please note they might not all be baby-related, apologies in advance at interrupting the all-Ollie content):

— at times, Ollie has, shall we say, difficulty putting his bowels into motion. this causes him distress. said distress announces itself several ways, but the most common ones are loud crying and Oliver making his "you try moving a '78 Buick through your lower intestine and see if you don't blow an O-ring" face. being the front-runner for Dad of the Year that i am, i attempt to help him work through these tough situations by pumping his little legs and rubbing his belly, while simultaneously laughing my ass off every time his face gets redder than Vader's lightsaber. i have not, however, employed the technique our pediatrican advised us might help with the situation, mainly because it involves massaging baby oil into his perineum and on either side of his anus. now i love my kid, but giving his gooch a greasy rubdown isn't exactly high on my Bucket List.

— if you mention to someone that you go to the gym, and their reaction is, "oh? really? you work out?" either it's time to step up the intensity of your workouts, or else find a more productive use for the $38 you're flushing every month on a YMCA membership.

— so far, Oliver has been blessed with near-perfect skin. (i'm not bragging, check the pictures, they don't lie.) well, at some point, all babies get something called cradle cap, which involves the skin on their head crusting up and flaking off and basically making Ally Sheedy's Breakfast Club dandruff-as-snow illustration decoration look like a powdered sugar joke. (go on, Google it. not. pretty.) so after 20+ days of looking angelic, Ollie got his first taste of this the other day, and even though it's probably the mildest case in recorded cradle cap history ... let's just say i didn't handle it well. i just don't want anything to be wrong with him, or anything bad to happen to him. ever. but getting worked up over a small patch of skin flakes on his forehead? what the hell am i going to do when he gets cut from the JV soccer team, or gets fired from his first job, or gets rejected by the "easy" girl in high school? can you get a doctor to write you a vallium prescription that has 18 years worth of refills?

— if you're driving down the road, and the dude in the car in front of you sticks a hand out the window, rubs his thumb and forefinger together a few times before proceeding to make ostentatious flicking motions, is there ANY doubt he just got finished picking his nose and is now attempting to dispose of the evidence/nasal debris?

— i'm proud to say that almost everyone who meets Oliver comments on how beautiful he is. i'm hoping his ladykiller status sticks around for the next four or five decades.

I'm in a zone — anyone seen the black Zorro?

2009-04-18T19:00:00.000-04:00

"Hey. Chump. You wanna run?"

"You mean play basketball?"

today is the start of the NBA Playoffs, and since my Hawks not only made the cut, but actually secured home court in the first round by finishing as the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference, what better flick to trot out for my inaugural ripping off of Cinematical's "Movies We Love" running series than White Men Can't Jump.

(i can hear ... well, i can't hear anybody really, but i'm sure there's an imaginary someone who, if he actually existed, would be saying, "White Men Can't Jump?!? um, hello, Hoosiers anyone? are you high, or just retarded?" but Hoosiers is the easy, cop-out, go-to selection. it's a classic, not to say White Men Can't Jump isn't in its own way, but Hoosiers is timeless, whereas White Men Can't Jump is dated enough now that it gets a little lost in the shuffle. plus, this is my farking blog and if i want to pick White Men Can't Jump over Hoosiers, then dammit, i get to.)

normally i'd bore you with a lenghty recap, but i'll dispense with the setup and just break down everything that rules about the movie. (of course, if you actually need said recap, you really should schedule an appointment with your proctologist to see about having your head surgically removed from your lower intestines, as i hear it can be hazardous if you attempt to drive in that condition, but since i'm still glowing in the wake of Ollie's birth and feeling nice, it's about a couple of basketball junkies who use the fact that one of them is white to hustle other players in pick-up games as they ply their trade on the street courts of Los Angeles.)

the basketball scenes range from excellent to occasionally god awful, but even in its god awfulness, it never fails to entertain. slow motion is put to good use, and all the games definitely have a legit pick-up hoops feel to them. despite being a honky EmEffer, Harrelson definitely has game, but watch the defense (or lack thereof) the guys checking Woody often play. he repeatedly offers these clowns nothing more than a rudimentary head fake, and as if pulled by some invisible off-screen string, the defenders bite and then go flying by, leaving Woody to say hello to a wide open jumper. and Snipes, for all his obvious athleticism, dribbles the ball up around his chin — any half-decent playground baller would leave him looking for his wallet after picking his pocket. and calling his shot butt-ugly would be an extreme kindness.

but as fun as the games are, where the movie shines is all the trash talking and the chemistry between Woody and Wesley. the former is off-the-charts hilarous, to which i've paid the ultimate compliment of using several lines as names for my fantasy basketball teams, including riotous gems like "I can hear Jimi!" and "John Keats is My Man" and "Opie's pissin' on you!" as for the latter, while it may not be on the level of Gibson-Glover or De Niro-Grodin or Hines-Crystal — and really, what is? — it's still pretty priceless.

Woody was still riding big on Cheers at the time, but his film career was about to take off. if you haven't seen Natural Born Killers or The People vs. Larry Flynt or Kingpin(!), you're doing yourself a disservice. and Snipes was just transitioning from his New Jack City-Jungle Fever roots into his action hero days, which started with Passenger 57, a flick that taught me to "always bet on black."

another of the film's strengths is its ridiculous rewatchability. unfortunately, no matter how many times i watch it, Rosie Perez is still a whiny and annoying PITA, and though she does manage some good lines, she plays The Sports Guy's Token Wet Blanket Girlfriend role to shrilly, ear-drum-damaging perfection.

in case you're curious, or his name sounds familiar, director Ron Shelton also helmed Bull Durham, which you may have heard of, it's only one of the greatest baseball movies ever made. (he's also married to Lolita Davidovich. bravo and well done, sir.)

Happy Easter from Oliver, a Harry & David bunny, and some unsavory unshaven dude

2009-04-12T22:46:00.000-04:00

Random photos, complete with (mostly) movie quote captions

2009-04-12T21:49:00.000-04:00

well maybe Ollie hacked the game and created an adorable baby class. maybe Ollie is pretty handy with computers. ain't that occured to you, mr. condescending director?

don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. the ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of a Nap.

i'm funny how, i mean funny like i'm a clown, i amuse you?

naked blonde walks into a bar with a poodle under one arm and a two-foot salami under the other...

i'll make him an offer he can't refuse.

dude, no. this is serious. i just sharted.

so ... who mows your nose hair?

no, i'm not playing World of Warcraft. honest to blog.

resistance is futile.

Oliver at one week

2009-04-08T02:06:00.000-04:00

happy one week birthday, Oliver.

(yes, we're new parents. how could you tell?)

Ollie's no shark, but Dr. Evil would have been proud

2009-04-07T23:36:00.000-04:00

so. when i got up this morning to change Oliver's diaper, i was probably 90% reanimated corpse, 10% functioning human being-cum-parental unit (which is a pretty good ratio these days, actually). i lifted Ollie's legs to remove his loaded Huggy, and before you could say, "pee pee tee pee," a FRICKIN LASER BEAM OF URINE SHOT FROM HIS PENIS.

everyone, including me, knows that boys have a tendency to squirt when you change them. but seeing as Oliver had yet to do this, coupled with my less-than-alert mental state, it just didn't occur to me to prepare for such an incidient.

and man, what an incident. pretty sure he repainted half the nursery wall, and he still had enough in the tank to give himself quite the golden shower afterward. it even splashed in his ear, and the top of the stream's arc went well above my head.

i was so surprised and, quite frankly, amazed, i just stood there and watched it happen. i am fairly convinced, however, that had i done something as foolish as attempt to divert the stream with my hand, i would have lost a few fingers in the process.

on the plus side, my kid has a laser cannon for junk. how cool is that?

Search your feelings, you know it to be true

2009-04-04T04:38:00.000-04:00

dear Oliver,

hi, son. this is your father. i am so excited that you are finally here.

i'm writing you this letter because there are so many things i want to tell you, i feel like i'm going to explode like the Death Star after Luke lights up its ray-shielded, two meter-wide thermal exhaust port with a Force-guided proton torpedo. i'm sure i'll forget a few, just like i'm equally sure i'll go over board on a few, but i hope you'll forgive me and look past all the sap and bluster and see to the heart of what i'm really trying to say.

(but first off, let's get the obvious out of the way: if you don't love Star Wars as much as i do, i may have to go back to the hospital and see what their exchange policy is.)

i have such stupendously high hopes for you. i hope you love to read as much as your mom and i do. for something that has given so much to me, i just want to share it with you. books can take you places you can hardly dream of going, teach you to express yourself in a myriad of ways, and broaden your horizons like nothing else can. (you can also learn how to tell people off in a multitude of colorful ways, not to mention you might wind up gleaning a thing or two about how women think, which will be invaluable when you start trying to pick them up.)

i want you to be smart like your mom and funny like me. your momma is also a nice looking lady, and i think you're already taking after her in that regard, so hopefully your school years will be a little more "exciting" than your daddy's were.

i want you to make good friends. i want you to have adventures. i want you to play hide-and-seek and cops and robbers. i want you to traipse across open fields with your best mates singing, "Have gun, will travel, reads the card of a man." i want you to tie a blue dishtowel around your neck and jump off the arm of the couch doing your best Batman impersonation. i want you to roughhouse and carouse and cut up. i want you to find new and ingenious ways of blowing up your toy figures with firecrackers. or TNT. or C-4 plastic explosive.

i can't wait to teach you the long-honored Curtis tradition of hand-farting. it will amaze your friends, piss off your teachers, and just generally impress everyone in the room. this is because farts are funny. don't listen to anyone who says otherwise, because a person who says farts aren't funny is a liar, and we don't pay heed to liars.

this next one might be a bit selfish, but i hope you love to write as much as i do, but that you're able to push beyond my limited ceiling and soar with it. i would love nothing more than to see you blow past your old man and write thoughtfully and beautifully, with an elegant simplicity that is embedded with wisdom and wit and a frosting of panache. and of course, being wickedly readable is never a bad thing. think Mark Twain meets Tim O'Brien meets Stephen King. you'd be cooking with gas, kid.

i'm dying to take you and your mom to Disneyworld. i want us to all have breakfast in Cinderella's Castle and then shoot bad guys next to Buzz Lightyear and maybe zoom around Neverland alongside Peter Pan and go visit with Flik inside the Tree of Life. we're gonna eat soft-serve ice cream and buy overly expensive t-shirts and ride so many rides that we'll barf. and it's gonna be AWESOME.

now, i want you to pay close attention to this next part, Ollie. these hopes i have for you, these things i've said, they are all well and good, and meant with the best of intentions. some of them you'll try; some of them you won't. some of them you'll love; some of them won't appeal to you. some of them you might even downright loathe. but you know what? whatever you decide to try or do or be, it'll be OK by me.

the most important thing for you to do is BE YOU. i'm full to bursting with things for us to experience together, but i'm not going to take MY things and attempt to make them be YOUR things, too. (with the lone exception of the Star Wars bit, which has been duly and repeatedly noted. that one's non-negotiable, i'm afraid.) i am who i am because my parents allowed me to figure out what i liked and who i wanted to be, and they didn't get mad or put limits on me when i changed my mind or made mistakes or bad decisions.

all these things are a part of growing up and forging your own identity, and i don't think there will be anything more important that i can teach you.

i'm glad, however, that those days are a good ways away, because honestly, i have no effing clue HOW I'M GOING TO DO IT. and i'm kinda scared shitless about it.

but i'll always love you. so no matter what, at the very least, you'll always have that.

your dad

The IMP finds oxygen agreeable

2009-04-02T11:46:00.000-04:00

Benjamin Everett Oliver is here, and through an interpreter (me), he has asked that the following message be passed along to all interested parties:

"what up."

for the ADHD folks, here is all the need-to-know stuff:

→ he was born on 3/31/09 at 11:06pm, meaning i missed out on my April Fool's wish by a mere 54 minutes. (i've already asked the nurses and the doctor for all of my fifties back.)

→ he weighed a slight 6 lbs., 2.7 oz. as no one seemed concerned about this after the delivery or in any of the time since, i'm not sweating it, either.

→ length was an even 50 cm, or 19.75 inches. (body, not penis - recycled joke alert!) this was more surprising than the "low" weight. chances appear great that i have not fathered the next Yao Ming.

mom, baby, and dad are all well. no, we're not tired. adrenaline is a wonderful thing. yes, we know we ain't seen nothing yet. but as of now, we have a peaceful, easy child that we're having the time of our lives bonding with.

"i know there's a boob around here somewhere ..."

"my 'lulling you into a false sense of serenity' look is pretty good, no?"

"blah blah blah you're happy to see me, cough up the colostrum, woman!"

"i solemnly swear i am up to no good ..."

"hi dad. it's Ollie. when can we watch Star Wars?"

more soon.

Can my son have a Hand of Doom, too? What does your watch say? (Nothing, you gotta look at it!)

2009-03-30T10:01:00.000-04:00

barring last minute divine intervention during my birthday dinner, Heather will be induced tomorrow morning at 7am. (apparently, they didn't have anything EARLIER.) as for the IMP's impending arrival, i'd make a cool reference to the beginning of Hellboy, specifically how Emory Johns Creek looks nothing like the old gothic churchyard where baby Hellboy gets coughed out of a dimensional rift created by a paranormal Nazi experiment, but my mom might disown, disembowel, and/or dismember me (quite possibly all three, in no particular order).

thanks to everyone who's wished me a happy birthday (you know who you are). and to all those who haven't .... *ACK* ... struggling ... mightily ... against new vow ... to stop .... swearing.

gonna try and get caught up on a few things before Oliver comandeers the blog for the forseeable future:

→ after a loooong hiatus, Heather and i finally resumed watching (read: suffering through) Heroes the other night. we only made it through the one episode. that should tell you everything. (i know i've moaned about this a few times, but it bears repeating ... what has happened to this show? i never thought Tim Kring was a genius, but i gave him credit for making season one what it was, and, let's be honest, there's a reason the backlash and disappointment from fans is as widespread and vocal as it is — Heroes, once upon a time, was actually good.)

→ a while back i met my buddy John and my brother Eric at the only theater in Atlanta playing Fanboys. i can hear all the non-geeks out there scratching their heads and asking, "WTF is Fanboys?" in a nutshell, it's a troubled film whose release date has been bumped at least seven times since production wrapped back in the spring of 2006, had a major plotline removed at the behest of Harvey Weistein, endured a round of re-shoots a full year and a half after principal photography ended, had a streamlined version of the removed plotline shoehorned back in, and then it was finally and unceremoniously dumped onto a scant 44 screens back on February 8th 2009.

the idea is great: four buddies, all life-long Star Wars powernerds, decide to take a road trip to San Francisco and break in to Skywalker Ranch so they can be the first fans to see Episode I before it hits theaters. as you can imagine, the flick is rife with in-jokes and takes several choice pot-shots at a rival sci-fi franchise (do i even need to say which one?). obviously, the film is aimed at the diehards, but i think it would be funny to casual and even non-fans, alike. of course, lord only knows when it will actually street on DVD, since it's pitiful excuse for a theatrical release is long over. definitely keep an eye open for it. (and i don't think this is a spoiler, but the flick ends with them about to watch the movie, and one of them asks, "guys, what do we do if it sucks?" niiiiice.)

→ tell me you've heard the Three Stooges bit ... no? The Farrelly Brothers, aka The Geniui Who Made Jeff Daniels Take a Huge Turbo-lax Assisted Crap, have begun casting their latest comedic opus. get this — Sean Penn will play Larry, Benicio Del Toro is up for Moe, and old Farrelly Bros. standby Jim Carrey is set to gain 40 pounds to play Curly. the Del Toro hire sickens me, but i'm intrigued by Penn as Larry (someone at Cinematical jokingly wondered if he'd go Method and shave the front half of his head), and as a long-time Carrey fan, i have little doubt he'll kill as Curly. i'm sure this will be a straight gagfest, and as much as i'll probably eat it up, i think an equally interesting idea would be to play the movie-within-a-movie card, the "inner" movie with the Stooges as their film personalities, but the main feature about their real-life personas. of course, this would only work if their were some kind of drama surrounding their off-screen relationships. you know, the standard, "this one's a bitter drunk, that one beats his wife, the other one can't stop gambling even though he already owes the mob six figures" type stuff. and seeing how they willfully smacked the tar out of each other on a regular basis, and filmed it no less, you'd have to think there's some fire to go with that kind of smoke.

→ a couple of people have asked about my take on Watchmen. and you can rest ambivalent that it's coming. eventually. (actually ... i have a pretty huge geek confession to make: i never finished reading the graphic novel. i started it many moons ago, but for some reason i can no longer recall, i set it down and never picked it back up (i speculate that a new Wheel of Time novel came out shortly after i started it). but i'm re-reading it now and want to finish it before posting my take. some people will say that means i can't properly judge the film since i saw it first, but whatever. in short, i will say that i really enjoyed the movie; i've seen it twice, the second time in IMAX, and think it plays better the second go around.)

→ we went to see I Love You Man yesterday and i thought it ruled. was surprised because i remember it getting a bunch of poor press right before it came out, dismissing it as "minor work" for Paul Rudd and Jason Segel. i'm calling horsebleep on that. it feels like over half the movie is just the two of them riffing and ad-libbing and playing off one another, and that's a good thing. i won't even call this a complaint, but one thing i did wish for was outtakes during the credits, but i'm sure they are saving those for DVD and blu-ray.

ok. when the next post goes up, i'll be a dad. holy shit.

(gave myself a freebie on that one. felt warranted.)

Reviewing the book i should have written

2009-03-27T02:47:00.000-04:00

way back when, i mentioned this book and said maybe one day i'd get around to doing a report on it.

well, it's your lucky day, internet. behold, and at long last, my reaction to Mark Barrowcliffe's The Elfish Gene: Dungeons, Dragons, and Growing Up Strange.

this was a fun and funny, 277-page walk down memory lane for me. much like the author, fantasy role-playing games were a huge part of my pre-teen, teenage, and even post-adolescent years (and obviously still are to some degree — hello, World of Warcraft). as such, i think a part of my brain will always crave, or at least certainly relish, exposure to worlds where dragons breathe fire and hoard treaure, wizards weave thaumaturgical wonders, barbarians leave bloody wakes littered with people cleft in twain, monks are dispassionate martial artists trained to unleash unstoppable killing attacks like "The Quivering Palm," and magical items have awesome monikers like Vorpal Blade, Girdle of Giant Strength, Sword of Sharpness, or Gauntlets of Ogre Power. (speaking of, i've been meaning to mention this and i keep forgetting — several of the birthing videos we've seen in our baby classes refer to the amniotic sac as the "Bag of Waters." i've repeatedly had to bite my tongue to keep from saying, "yeah, my rogue looted one of those in the Halls of Lightning just the other day!")

but whereas Barrowcliffe allowed the game to consume him and irrevocably shade his youth to the point that it cost him some friends, not to mention prospective girlfriends, with me, it was almost the exact opposite (well, at least for the girlfriend part. i mean i had girlfriends, but ... is it tragically wrong to lament how little you got laid in school? and how long is too long to mourn my sexless youth? is the rest of my life a bad answer?). so for all the naysayers out there, D&D played an integral part in me meeting and making my best friends, people i'm still very close to some two and a half decades later. our common interest in this supposedly dangerous game poured the foundations for some rock-solid friendships.

(so, Don, Rod, and Matthew, it would seem you all rolled poorly on your respective d20 saving throws vs. friend-seeking, loud-mouthed, recalcitrant dillholes. well done.)

i can't talk about this book and my gaming friends without sending a couple of special shout-outs to some of my Sweetwater Middle School cutthroat buddies. the first is to Mason, a guy i only got to hang with during my 7th grade year, but he made a pretty big impression on me for the short time we knew each other before he had to move back to New York. we were hardcore into Star Frontiers, and i was always impressed with the depth and effort Mason put into the adventures he wrote for me, something i never forgot and which influenced me to make every campaign i ran a memorable one, regardless of the game it was for or who was playing it. i also have extremely fond memories of a short trip he made back here after moving away — an expansion to the original Star Frontiers game, the Zebulon Guide to Frontier Space, had recently come out, and we got to squeeze in one last space-faring, xenomorph-infested, blaster-filled hurrah with the new rules before i never saw him again.

next up has to be Donnie. from 1985 to 1987, we were tighter than twins and thicker than thieves. aside from infrequent bike rides to the convenience store to score some Big League Chew, the occasional BB-gun fight in the woods out behind his house, or the rare event that we successfully cajoled someone into take us to Six Flags (where, at some point during every coaster or ride, we would either shout "Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen!" or "Let's rock!" at the tops of our lungs (do i even need to tell you we snuck in to see Aliens that summer?)), all we did was role-play. in fact, we probably spent in the neighborhood of 90% of our time indoors, rolling a myriad of multi-colored dice all in the hopes of killing monsters, gaining experience points, and collecting better treasure, all things that made Donnie's father openly question our, um, proclivities. good times! AD&D was our primary game of choice, but Donnie would play just about anything, and so we did. he was equally at home being the DM (that's Dungeon Master to the layperson, aka the NOOB) as he was being a player. we didn't see much of one another during high school, though we were briefly reunited at Georgia Tech in 1990-91, but sadly, our gaming days were behind us.

speaking of Donnie and his willingness to try any manner of RPG, i enjoyed all the other games Barrowcliffe mentions, like Gamma World (where your hero was a mutant with powers spawned from the nuclear holocaust of a post-apocalyptic world — life leech, baby!) and Traveller, which of course made me think of all the other non-D&D stuff i played, with titles ranging from Star Frontiers and Knight Hawks, the original Palladium RPG, Middle-Earth Role Playing (which you were hilariously encouraged to refer to as M.E.R.P.), BattleTech, MechWarrior, Shadowrun, and so on. when it became obvious there was money to be made in role-playing games, the big name properties got involved, so you had RPGs set in recognizable universes like Star Wars (which, believe it or not, never caught on with me or my circle, we tried it a few times, but it was just uninspiring when held up against the films) and Marvel Super Heroes and even The Wheel of Time. these other games would crop up (or in some cases reappear as revamps or newer editions) and become fashionable for a while when people needed a momentary distraction from D&D, but their successes were sporadic and typically short-lived, even as their existence was owed directly to D&D's own long-lasting popularity.

another thing covered in the book that made me laugh: want to know the one thing that's universal about all role-players, far and wide, high and low? we all cheat. anyone who's ever created a D&D character has fudged a dice roll (or two, or three, or ...) while generating their ability scores. and who hasn't, in the middle of a heated battle, "accidentally" knocked their dice off the game table before the DM could see that you had tossed an embarrassingly low to-hit roll, or failed an important saving throw? (my favorite story in this regard involves me swindling my friend Don out of a insta-kill critical hit on what should have been an unkillable foe while playing M.E.R.P. i wasn't about to let his green, level one character toast an arch-enemy and loot his high-end gear, just because he pulled a 100 out of his ass. not surprisingly, he never played that particular game with me ever again.)

in that vein, one of the things that struck me about Barrowcliffe's gaming experiences was how often his characters died. i never suffered the trauma of repeated early deaths like he did. granted, unlike Barrowcliffe, i never played with people who couldn't stand to be around me, but even still. the only recollections i have of my characters dying horribly are when i played in tournaments at DragonCon, but those dungeons are designed to be stupendously hard. (that and the Con DMs are notoriously evil pricks.) of course, once you get past a certain point, barring certain extraordinary circumstances, just about any character death can be reversed with magic. but what killed me was how Barrowcliffe kept recycling the same name/character class combo until it finally stuck. i think at one point the iteration of the barbarian he played was up to Effilc the 1042nd.

occasionally, i catch myself wishing i was part of an active campaign again, be it as a DM or a player. some comic book shops host gaming sessions, but i've witnessed a few of those, and it's bad enough when i have to suffer idiots and asshats second hand in Warcraft. actually sitting across from them at a gaming table? i have no doubts that would lead to me getting the RPG eqivalent of a red card. plus Wizards of the Coast has nearly made the game unplayable; i haven't played the most recent version, the 4th edition, which supposedly streamlines the game back into manageablility, but the 3rd edition was unwieldy and overly complicated, with too many rules and optional supplements and addendums. i thought 2nd edition AD&D was bed enough; i used no fewer than five core rulebooks to run my campaigns, and there were more i could have incorporated but chose not to.

the computer game was both blessing and bane for D&D; it added that fantastical visual element most sessions lacked (unless you were lucky enough to game with Larry Elmore or Clyde Caldwell or Keith Parkinson and they decided to mock up some character and dungeon art for your campaign), but it eliminated the need for cooperative play. no need to ask your buddy, who always bitched that it was your turn anyway, to DM anymore; your PC would do it without complaint. granted, your options weren't open ended as they were with the tabletop version, but still, it enabled you to play with yourself and not worry about someone catching you with your mouse in your hand.

Barrowcliffe is upfront about what an annoying wanker he was during this time in his life. his journey from utter D&D obsessive to normal person, husband, dad, and eventual author might or might not stir the interest of non-gamers, but for even casual current and former D&Ders, all in all, this is a pretty fantastic read.

Final foursome of fetal pics

2009-03-27T01:56:00.000-04:00

for those of you who haven't heard, Heather is being induced next Tuesday. that means, barring an early appearance, Oliver's birthday will land right next to mine. i'm still holding out hope that even though the induction will take place on 3/31, he'll actually be born on 4/1. considering how deep my jackass roots run, it seems only appropriate that my kid should enter the world on April Fool's Day.

so, enjoy these 3D ultrasound shots — pay particular attention to how fat his cheeks have gotten — as the next pictures you see of the IMP will probably make him look, to quote Robin Williams, "like a little old man dipped in 40 weight."

my name is justin, and i am a bad baby blogger

2009-03-12T02:44:00.000-04:00

"hi, justin."

ok. as Heather has pointed out to me no fewer than 67 times over the past week or so (the best one being an email with nothing but the blog's URL in the body), i'm WICKED overdue for a baby-centric update. hell, i've even been delinquent with my movies/TV/books/insert-nerd-vice-of-choice postings. i offer up no excuses, ... well, except, of course, the only one that matters: i am, in no uncertain terms, a lazy, mouth-breating butthole.

but enough about me and my orifii. best to settle in, as you might be here a while (or feel free to print this and take it into the can with you, whatever blows your hair back). at long last, the latest IMP headlines!

(several of these will undoubtedly be old news to some. but, as my dad would say, that's just tough cheese. you'll live. and if not, i'll figure out a way to hide the bodies.)

the nursery is finished. huzzah! well, it's 99% finished, and that's damn close enough for me. the paint is dry, the furniture is in place, the walls are decorated, and the closet is full of tiny clothes and shoes and books and toys. it even looks nice. i have fond memories of this room; it served as my office/computer room for a good while before its unwilling metamorphosis into our primary junk room, aka the RAGING SHITHOLE, a role it served all too well for the past several years. i killed lots of Imperial jerkwads and wasted countless hours grinding professions trying to unlock my Jedi slot in that room. (shout out to all my old Galaxies players!) much to Heather's ongoing dismay, i popped my Warcraft cherry in that room. it used to house a lot of my most prized possessions, from Robert Jordan first editions to numerous Marvel and DC comic book staues to commissioned Brett Booth original artwork. i hope my son will derive as much enjoyment being a screaming doo-doo geyser (® trademark and copyright © 2005 John Menzies) in this room as i did gaming/fanboying in it. see if you can tell which are the before pics and which are the after pics:

Heather has been on a twice-a-week check-up schedule for almost the last month, and everything for both mom and IMP is looking good. we've been pretty lucky, they've actually taken quite a few 3D ultrasound pics for us, something we (apparently foolishly) paid someone to do waaaay back in week 12. and now brace yourselves, for here is a sampling of said pics:

we started our new baby class last week, Ready & Able. it was sparsley attended because of the weekend snow, but both the other couples were holdovers from our Showing & Glowing series, including Captain Fun Bags! (s(gl)adly, Sandra Oh 2.0 was not in attendance.) the class was heavily video oriented, and we got our first taste of prepping for the delivery, including the four Ps of labor, Passageway, Passenger, Power (of contractions), and Psychology. (i briefly entertained sharing with the class my Pissing, Pooping, Paroxysm, and peaking with potent Pain interpretation, but came to my senses when i remembered i was in a room full of pregnant women who likely don't need much prodding to unleash their more violent tendencies.) one of the videos contained a segment about how vocalizing during contractions can help deal with the discomfort, and i was disappointed by how clean the presentation was. i mean, times like those are custom made for expletives. i asked the instructor if there was a director's cut that contained all the unrated footage, aka The Good Stuff, and she gave at Heather a patient but weary, "you poor woman" look that i've probably seen, oh, about a thousand times before.

our second class included a tour of the hospital, the labor/delivery rooms, and so on. when you check in, they give you a set of ID bracelets that are coded, and they put one on your baby immediately after delivery. if the baby's bracelet gets too close a stairwell or doorway before you've been released, the entire hospital goes into lockdown, nobody in or out. kinda nifty. there was a new dad in the group tonight, a younger guy who had an incredibly rendered Yosemite Sam tattoo on his forearm. he also had an eyebrow piercing, the hints of another tattoo on his shin peeking out beneath his long shorts, which, i noted when he pulled up two of the three shirts he wore to adjust his belt, were cinched into place right beneath his junk and exposed 99% of his boxers-clad full moon. he was tall and extremely skinny — he couldn't have weighed more than 125 lbs — and though he had the outward demeanor of someone who's seen some shit (and maybe even started some), possibly in a gang or as a dealer, he was beyond super nice — when we went into one of the delivery rooms, there was limited seating and he offered Heather one of the only available chairs, and when we were shown where the natal intensive care unit was, one of the moms got a little emotional, and he handed her some kleenex he pinched off a nurse's desk. it also turned out he was super squeamish, because when it came time to watch a birth video that left zero to the imagination, the moment it got graphic, he abruptly got up and left, looking more than a little pasty.

Oliver was still breach up until a couple weeks ago, but he has finally turned and "assumed the position." as such, his legs are rammed up into Heather's ribs on her right side, and she swears he's using them an in utero Stairmaster. ("Have we turned into gerbils, ladies and gentlemen?!? what's next, the f*cking Chairmaster? I sit down, I get up! I sit down, I get up! I sit down, I get up!")

The highs and lows of Oscar night

2009-02-24T02:17:00.000-05:00

Hugh Jackman. the opening song-and-dance bit was the best since Billy Crystal's hey-day Best Picture skits. dude's a true triple threat. loved his "doing my fake Australian accent to impress Steven Spielberg" joke. also loved his "Kate Winslet, who's English, playing a German? Nominated. Robert Downey, Jr., an American, playing an Australian, playing an African American? Nominated. Hugh Jackman, an Australian, playing an Australian, set in Australia? Hosting." gag. i hope he comes back next year.

the idea to have five previous winners highlight this year's nominees in each of the respective acting categories looked good on paper, but the results were definitely mixed. the first time they did it was poorly timed, coming right on the heels of Jackman's high-energy opener, where its somber tone and seriousness fell flat. the presenters' comments were all over the map, ranging from hyperbole to understated to even dull. i also thought they made some strange choices regarding who introduced whom. Kevin Kline, who won Best Supporting Actor as the hysterical Otto from A Fish Called Wanda, should have introduced Downey, Jr. for his hilarious Tropic Thunder turn; instead, Kline got the sobering task of announcing Heath Ledger (although he did a good job with it). Anthony Hopkins, who got freaking nominated playing Nixon for Oliver Stone, should have introduced Frank Langella, but obviously that made too much sense, so he got Sean Penn instead. but the real reason i didn't like the new format? it broke my Marion Cotillard—Richard Jenkins joke from my pre-Oscars post, since for as long as i can recall the acting awards have been cross-gender affairs, with actors presenting to actresses and vice-versa.

i was glad to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button confined to winning the technical categories, because that's where the real strengths of that film lie (although the geek in me wouldn't have minded if either The Dark Knight or Iron Man had won for Visual Effects). i do feel a little bad for David Fincher, who by all accounts is seriously dedicated to his craft — you can see the progression in each of his films, and i'm excited for his next project, which apparently will be directing a segment of the remake of the 1981 animated cult classic, Heavy Metal.

best acceptance of the night — i know i should probably pick Clan Ledger here, but for me it was a tie between Dustin Lance Black and Philippe Petit. Black won Best Original Screenplay for Milk, and his speech was heartfelt and moving and apparently unscripted (at least, he didn't read off anything). wire-walker Petit, subject of the Best Documentary winner Man on Wire, followed up his one-word acceptance speech — "Yes!" — with a magic coin trick ... and then he proceeded to balance his Oscar on his chin. honorable mention has to go to Japan's Kunio Katô, who won Best Animated Short for La Maison en Petits Cubes. the poor guy's translator was apparently AWOL, so he thanked people in broken English before ending with "Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto." i hope the guys from Styx were watching. kick. butt.

funniest moment — while i liked Ben Stiller busting on Joaquin Phoenix, nothing topped James Franco and Seth Rogen wanting to get baked while watching Oscar clips with Janusz Kaminski. bonus points for having Kaminski, Steven Spielberg's frequent DoP and two-time Academy Award winner, taunt Slumdog Cinematographer and eventual winner Anthony Dod Mantle to "suck on that!" priceless.

it's difficult to reconcile Heath Ledger's win with his actual performance and its relation to those of his fellow nominees. it goes without saying that his death overshadowed everything and that the award not only was a nod to that, but also to the tragedy itself and to his entire career as well. but the question is, did he deserve it? i say yes ... but part of me still chafes to think that Jack Nicholson didn't even sniff a nomination for his interpretation of the Joker back at the '90 Oscars. that was, as they say, BEE ESS.

accepting the Best Animated Feature for WALL-E, Andrew Stanton said, "It's been such an inspiration to spend time with a character who so tenaciously struggles to find the beauty in everything that he sees." he also thanked his high school drama teacher for casting him in Hello, Dolly! and admitted that "creative seeds get sown in the oddest of places." did i mention i loved this flick?

i was happy for Kate Winslet and her first career win, and though i've heard how great Sean Penn was in Milk, i really had hoped Mickey Rourke would be the one taking home the Best Actor statue. setting aside that the potential for unintentional comedy during his acceptance speech would have been staggering, and regardless of what you think of him as a person, the bottom line is Rourke KILLS IT in The Wrestler, and i was pulling for him to win in a big way. Penn may not have pulled the big disappearing act like Rourke did, but he definitely burned bridges and acted like a prick and made it hard for people to root for him (although he gamely acknowledged this in his speech, for which i had to give him big kudos), and he won for Mystic River in spite of all that, so why reward Penn again and deny Rourke the perfect ending to his comeback story?

The triumph of Slumdog Millionaire was brilliant, and everything involved, from bringing the kids in the film over for the ceremony, to the uplifting attitude of song/score double winner A.R. Rahman, to the infectious joy and verve of Tigger-impersonating director Danny Boyle, just felt like manifest destiny. the alchemy of that film is staggering, and the fact that it nearly went straight to DVD in the US because Warner Bros. didn't believe in its prospects (they eventually sold their stake in the movie to Fox Searchlight after closing their Warner Independent Pictures division), makes seeing it rightfully rewarded on cinema's biggest stage that much sweeter.

What is 13.5" tall, weighs 8.5 lbs, and made of gold-plated britannium?

2009-02-20T02:02:00.000-05:00

i'm pretty sure i care more about the Oscars than just about anyone i know (except for my buddy John), and i had planned on doing an extensive pre-ceremony would-be/should-be winners write-up, but unfortunately, i have too many holes in my knowledge of the nominated films to pull it off. this, for lack of a better word, blows. however, what i am going to do (cue groan from the audience) is dump a random selection of my Academy Award winning thoughts on you, in no particular order:

→ the Heath Ledger backlash is already starting and dude hasn't even won yet. yeah, everyone thinks it's a foregone conclusion (and really, it is), but it seems some of the same people who were simultaneously lamenting Ledger's loss and praising his posthumous performance when The Dark Knight first ran wild in theaters are already back-tracking. they don't go quite so far as to diminish his turn as the Joker, but i've read more than a few say, basically, that you can't give an Oscar to a dead guy. wow. whatever you do, don't go out of your way to sound contrarian before the envelope has even been opened. i'm just curious to see who's going to accept the award on his behalf, and what he/she/they have to say.

→ if Kate Winslet and Marisa Tomei both take home a Golden Boy, it will lend a little more credence to the "showing your boobies increases your chances of winning" theory, and they can join the likes of Halle Berry, Jodie Foster, Holly Hunter, Gwynneth Paltrow, Kim Basinger, Rachel Weisz, Hilary Swank, and Julia Roberts (ok, that's kind of cheating, but her Wonderbra did give her more support) on that particular bus.

→ if Richard Jenkins shocks and wins Best Actor, i hope he runs up to the podium, snatches the statue from Marion Cotillard, then immediately runs off stage while shouting back over his shoulder, "You can't catch the wind!" that would rule. (if you have no idea what i'm talking about, just rent Flirting with Disaster and all will be forgiven.)

→ i was glad to see Robert Downey, Jr. nominated for Tropic Thunder, not only since comedic performances are so rarely recognized by the Academy, but also because it makes me think of Kevin Kline's sublime Supporting Actor win for A Fish Called Wanda. and anything that makes me think of A Fish Called Wanda is a good thing. ("I'm SORRY I ate your fish! OK?!?")

→ several someones have brought up the possibility that the '09 Oscars could potentially mirror the '99 Oscars. as you may or may not recall, that was the year that Shakespeare in Love, a good film, inexplicably beat Saving Private Ryan, a classic film, in the Best Picture race. that upset is largely credited to the campaign efforts of then-Miramax honcho Harvey Weinstein, whose current studio The Weinstein Company produced and distributed current lurking darkhouse candidate The Reader. a lot has been made of The Reader being a surprise inclusion with so many nominations, since it's critical reception upon release was lukewarm at best. is Harvey, a decade later, up to his old tricks again? not having seen The Reader, i don't have as much of an investment and thus won't likely feel the same outrage i experienced back in '99 should history repeat itself, but i loved Slumdog Millionaire and will be pulling for it to come out on top.

→ Milk has basically been given with the Best Adapted Screenplay award already, but i would love to see WALL-E sneak in and ninja it. alas, this was my hope for Memento back in 2001, but the award went to that wicked snoozefest Gosford Park. and sure, WALL-E is gonna win Best Animated Feature, but i still contend it should be duking it out with the big boys for Best Picture.

→ loved Frost/Nixon, thought Frank Langella was spellbinding as ol' Dickey boy, or, as Stephen King called him, The Great American Political Vampire (does that rule or what!). but if you're nominating Langella, then where the @#$* is Michael Sheen's nod?!? also, as one of Ron Howard's few online defenders, i'm glad he was nominated for Best Director, simply because it will piss off a lot of the haters/bloggers/message board douche bags.

→ i'm down with Hugh Jackman as Oscars MC. dude is funny and talented and seems fairly down-to-earth. plus, he's Wolverine. how awesome would it be if he went Weapon X-berserker style on Ridley Scott for sitting in the front row and pouting like a ten year who's just been put in time-out??? and i'm pretty sure it'll never happen, but i still would love to see Robin Williams or Jim Carrey get a crack at hosting. their both a little past their prime (sad to say), but, given carte blanche, i'm sure both would still do a hilarious job.

→ and just for shits and grins, here are my only-partially-educated guesses for the big winners:

     Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight

     Best Supporting Actress: Amy Adams, Doubt

     Best Actor: Sean Penn, Milk

     Best Actress: Kate Winslet, The Reader

     Best Director: Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire

     Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire

Misrepresenting Your Movie 101 by New Line Cinema

2009-02-17T02:46:00.000-05:00

hope your Valentine's (or Singles Awareness) Day was all you wanted it to be. Heather and i went to the mall and then to the movies like a couple of teenagers. i even bought a Batman hoodie from Hot Topic. and no, that doesn't make me lame. (ok, maybe it does. whatever.) we went to see He's Just Not That Into You. i had read going in that it was a terrible movie for first dates, and man, they weren't kidding. neurotic stalker chick with tons of baggage? check. players who lie to your face with a straight face? check. girl who ignores safe and stable dude because she'd rather chase unobtainable married man? check. cheating spouses? check. guy who won't commit because "he doesn't believe in marriage?" check. psychotic woman who lays down the "marry me or else" ultimatum? check. if there's a more heinous list on why dating sucks, i'd love to see it.

however, the film has several good performances, and while the script only occasionally rises above serviceability, i give the writers credit for not shying away from stuff that undoubtedly will touch some nerves, and all the situations feel real. i liked Ginnifer Goodwin, even if her character (the neurotic stalker chick with tons of baggage) was more like a caricature (and in dire need of a smacking). the skeletal remains of Jennifer Connelly can still act circles around most of her peers (speaking of Connelly, how's this for irony? in the film, her husband has a flirtation with Scarlett Johannson, who's practically the second coming of Connelly circa 1991). Jennifer Aniston channels her role from The Break-Up, only with more angst and fewer jokes (and no Telly Savalas), and she traded in Vince Vaughn's corpse for Ben Affleck's giant dome (who curiously seemed to be aping little brother Casey's style here, which i found very strange). Justin Long was also quite good, and his body of work over the past few years is varied and interesting, from the aforementioned The Break-Up to Live Free or Die Hard to Waiting to Zack & Miri Make a Porno.

HJNTIY is a curious flick, one i would cautiously recommend, but just ignore the trailer if you decide to go, as it does the film a massive disservice by making it look like your standard fun, flirty rom-com, which, as i've said, it clearly isn't. there are some laughs, but they're easily offset by the heaviness of some of the drama. let's hear it for the New Line marketing department!

Leo I'm going long!, malapropos mammary misgivings, Empire vs the field

2009-02-13T01:44:00.000-05:00

last night was our second Showing and Glowing class. somehow we managed to get there five minutes early and thus did not get stuck sitting next to Sandra Oh 2.0, who ran late. there was interaction galore this time around, with lots of little games and exercises. one of them involved passing a doll down the line and, with some lovely audio of a wailing baby playing in the background, each person had to offer up one soothing technique, without repeating any ideas that had already been given. naturally the doll started on the opposite end of the room from us, but Heather and i both had good answers — she said a bath, i said a massage, two gold stars for the Curtii. the instructor made a point of telling people to treat the doll like a real child, i.e. support its head, cradle it, etc. and of course, the first dude who got the doll couldn't resist channeling his inner Kurt Warner and chucking it to the guy beside him like he was Larry Fitzgerald blazing downfield on a deep route.

after that came a questionnaire which you and your partner each filled out separately and then compared answers. afterwards was a discussion where we could pose questions of our own. the guy beside us asked, "what's going to happen to my wife's, er, boobs after the baby is born? are they going to change size, or, um, are they going sag, or anything like that?" the instructor's blunt response: "yes. they're going to sag." homeboy's brilliant follow-up: "well, it's not permanent ... right?" i thought this was pretty common knowledge, and while i can empathize with him mourning the death of his wife's gazongas, it might be prudent not only to wait and see how much extra the gravity kicks in, but you also might not want to make it (painfully) clear to a room full of strangers that, when given the chance to voice any worries you have about being pregnant, your wife getting stuck with (or perhaps more appropriately in this case, getting stuck with your wife's) postpartum knee-shooters is your chief concern.

at one point the instructor asked if anyone had dogs or cats at home, and after nearly the entire class raised their hands, she proceeded to scare the shit out of us by saying, "Never trust your dog or cat with your baby. EVER." she followed this up with wonderful omens like, "It doesn't matter how long the dog has known your child," and, "Sometimes dogs will just snap and maul your baby," and, "You might as well baste your kid in A1 steak sauce and fling him into a lion's den." (ok, i made that last one up.) a little earlier, the boob guy had mentioned that he had several pet fish. (when they make it that easy, it almost takes all the fun out of it.) this prompted me to remark, "never trust your fish with your baby." i'm not ashamed to say it brought the house down. (justin 1, Captain Fun Bags 0.)

Heather asked me last night what my favorite 80s movie was. my response was, "be more specific." did she mean my favorite movie released during the 80s, or my favorite 80s movie, which really is a category all unto itself. and i think my answers (or as you're about to see, my lack thereof) certainly bear that out. when she said she wanted to hear both, i immediately replied that The Empire Strikes Back is my favorite movie released during the 80s. but when i went to name my favorite 80s movie, it quickly became clear that, not only did i have no idea what it was, i didn't even know how to go about figuring out what it was. so you'll have to stay tuned for the answer to that one, which will undoubtedly take me far too long to ascertain, and furthermore, once i manage to come to a conclusion, i have no doubt that anyone bothering to read this won't actually give a shit one way or the other.

Guess what these things have in common

2009-02-11T02:50:00.000-05:00

we are inching ever closer to the completion of the nursery. (thank God.) the room is now officially empty; the holes in the wall have been patched; the trim has been taped and the drop cloths are down. let the painting commence! first up is the ceiling, to cover some lovely water stains from a roof leak we had a while back. and our ceiling isn't smooth, it's that annoying spackled, tiny-stalactite-encrusted kind that, to me, serves absolutely no purpose whatsoever. plus they make it difficult to hang those glow-in-the-dark stars and constellations, and everyone knows those things rule. the color we picked out is a toffee-ish shade of brown, with a hint of caramel perhaps. but definitely *not* a hint of turd.

i totally flipped out my friend John by emailing him how pissed i was that i forgot to watch/DVR the season premiere of Dollhouse last Friday. his response email went something like, "WTF!?!?! I was told that the Dollhouse premiere was [this] FRIDAY?!?! I didn’t freakin’ miss it did I???? It’s ON my calendar dude! Friday, Friday, Friday, isn’t it?????" for some reason, even though i mentioned its start date being Friday the 13th in this very space, i got confused and thought it aired back on the 6th. but like i told John, now i'm doubly glad i remembered it wrong, not only because that means i didn't miss it, but because i successfully made a grown man SHIT IN HIS PANTS at the office during the middle of the work day.

i saw an E! headline where Katherine Heigl and T.R. Knight may be leaving Ghey's Anatomy at the end of this season. i couldn't give an airborne rodent's conflagrated gluteus maximus if they are or they aren't. what does concern me is that i can't decide which is worse — the fact that, in the comments section, someone made a reference to "Mer-Der" being the heart of the show and i understood it (Meredith is Ellen Pompeo's televised blight on humanity, Derek is Patrick "I still do the African Anteater Ritual!" Dempsey), or the fact that i clicked the link in the first place. i'm going with the former; yeah i read the article, but i'll take the heat on that in exchange for learning that the way fans refer to the show's main "couple" is a play on a word for killing someone. which is basically what you'd have to do to me to make me watch another episode of what has become the biggest dingleberry festooned in the asshair of nighttime TV.

Do we really have to sit by her, Ollie's unnatural naturalness, slide your cup a little to the left

2009-02-06T02:34:00.000-05:00

we had our first Glowing & Showing class up at the Women's Pavilion at Gwinnett Medical. it's geared for women in their first and second trimesters, so we're a little late in the game, but it's part of a series that leads into Lamaze, plus we paid for it, so we weren't keen on skipping out. we ran late in true Curtii fashion and, lo and behold, guess who we wound up sitting next to? the Sandra Oh clone from our first class at the Women's Pavilion back in November. and get this: this dude in the class mentioned in front of everyone that he thought she looked like Oh. her response? "yeah, i hear that all the time, but i don't see it." uh, whaaaaat? the forces of the universe will strike me down with all of their hatred if i don't call BS on that. in fact, her mannerisms and attitude were what reminded me of Oh's Ghey's Anatomy character as much as, if not moreso than, her looks in the first place. so yeah, tell yourself that all you want, homegirl, but daddy ain't buying.

the class ran from 7pm almost to 9:30pm, and most of it was a rehash of stuff we'd heard at other classes and seminars. there was some good info on preterm babies, and the instructor demonstrated (and had us participate in) some good exercises for Heather's back and, um, her other parts. said instructor also took at least four or five shots at herself for being, for lack of a better word, fat. which she was. i can't speak for anyone else, but i didn't need multiple announcements to catch that drift. but it did help keep me awake. ish.

we also had a scare the other day. Heather's to the point where she's supposed to keep track of Oliver's activity, which should hit 10 or more seperate movements per hour. acceptible such movements include, but are not limited to, pulling a Rocky with her spleen in the speedbag role, tap dancing on her bladder, or using the Force to play cat's cradle with his umbilical cord. well, the other night he didn't even sniff his quota for the entire evening, so the next day Heather went to the doctor. they made her eat peanut butter crackers and drink some juice and then hooked her up to a fetal monitor/stimulus machine. Ollie's heartrate was slower than it's been, down in the 130s, and he wasn't as responsive as they would have liked, but apparently he did get super pissed at one point and delivered a monstrous Jean-Claude Van Damme kick to Heather's rib cage. they told her to go eat a big lunch — and she didn't screw around, she proceeded to hoover a quarter pounder, fries, a coke, and a (i drink your) milkshake — and then go to the hospital for a more intensive test. he responded a little better there and they declared him to be fine, but they want to keep an eye on things, so from now on she'll have weekly check-ups. and if he responds to those like he did the first one, maybe the IMP will continue channeling his inner Bruce Lee and be a black belt before he's even out of the womb.

not like you need any additional ammo, but i'm going to open myself up to (further) ridicule by discussing the current season of American Idol. in short, it blows. granted, this is no revelation, but even taking into account the show's perpetual poor form during the initial audition / Hollywood week episodes, it's been heinous (the bad one). remember all that talk about tweaking the show's format to focus more on the talent and less on the whack-jobs in wake of the fan who killed herself in Paula Abdul's driveway? well, that's all it was. *talk*. we might have seen a few more good auditions ... actually, i take that back. it's been EXACTLY the same as every other year. the only change at this point has been bringing in new judge Kara DioGuardi, but her presence has only been interesting from the standpoint that Fox has had to resort to strategically angling the camera so that her water cup blocks the view of her cleavage, which is frequently exposed by her (clearly favored) shirts-with-gaping-cutouts-of-various-shapes wardrobe. and let's not forget the incessant whining and general asshat-dom of the contestants. they all get on my nerves, even some of the good ones, to the point where i wish i could turn into the creepy little girl from The Ring, jerkily crawl through the TV, and proceed to annihilate them all beyond repair. in Murtaugh-ese, i'm getting too old for this shit. i'm sure i'll settle down once all the stupid nonsense is behind us and the competition really begins, but in the interim, you might want to avoid my end of the couch, as it currently houses my RAPIDLY CALCIFYING CORPSE.

Opie vs Mr. Rachel Weisz, hey! i know that guy, you taught your kid to do WHAT?

2009-02-03T02:42:00.000-05:00

it was a good getting-ready-for-the-Oscars weekend. Saturday we hit up Frost / Nixon, a movie that's getting great buzz ... from the few people who've actually seen it. otherwise, the pub on it seems practically non-existent. i know Ron Howard isn't exactly beloved by the online community — when he's not getting flamed, the overwhelming sentiment is that he takes no risks and that his films are banal or, worse, boring — and that kind of baffles me. ok, so dude's résumé doesn't read like a Kubrick or a Scorsese or an Aronofsky (more on him in a sec), but he's made some great movies. people take shots at A Beautiful Mind, and everyone seems to dismiss Cinderella Man, but both are legitimally fine films. it's got a bit of cheese, but i really enjoy Backdraft, and The Missing is underrated. ok, so The DaVinci Code kind of blew, but even if he'd never done anything else, the guy directed Parenthood! he gets a free pass based on that alone. maybe his style isn't flashy or avant-garde, but he pulls great performances out of everyone in Frost / Nixon — Frank "I played Skeletor, dammit!" Langella is phenomenal and almost unrecognizable as Tricky Dick, and Michael Sheen is excellent as the in-over-his-head-I-just-wanna-be-taken-seriously-and-do-something-meaningful David Frost. it's the story of a disgraced President trying to alter the perception of his legacy juxtaposed against a glorified talk show host's attempt to legitimize his hokey career or risk leaving no real legacy at all, and the intersection of their efforts was a fascinating clash of personalities that, for a short time in 1977, captured the attention of the world.

then Sunday it was The Wrestler. Mickey Rourke is an easy target, be it for his early bad boy histrionics or the infamous list of roles he's turned down (Jack Cates, Axel Foley, Connor MacLeod, Eliot Ness, Charlie Babbit, Jack Crawford, Johnny Ringo (is that a sick list or what?!?)) or his questionable return to boxing that literally cost him his face. (i mean, have you seen dude lately? Google him at the Golden Globes. he's the anti-Muhammed Ali.) Robert Downey Jr. gets all the ink, and maybe Rourke's case is a little different in terms of his method of self-destruction and the question of whether he's truly recovered (seen any of the quotes he's made referring to his co-star Evan Rachel Wood? in a word: creepy.), but as far as putting yourself back on the map goes, there's not really a better story than Rourke pulling down an Oscar nod as Randy "The Ram" Robinson. it's a rare performance that transcends your awareness of what you're watching, when you witness an actor become someone else, where the film doesn't feel like a film anymore, but a slice of reality that just happens to be unfolding up on a big screen. Rourke nails the essence of that in The Wrestler. he *is* the picture, and he's riveting to watch, to the point that the film would have fallen apart with anyone else in the role. director Darren Aronofsky — who's sparked his own online debate, but whereas for Howard it's a "does he even matter as a filmmaker" discussion, with Aronofsky it's more a "the depth of his importance / what do his films mean / will it be 20 years or only 10 before his genius is universally acknowledged" debate — has created a small, gritty masterpiece, full of despair and unrealized hopes, but also about accepting yourself and going out on your own terms. i think it's the intimacy, how close he makes you feel to his pictures, not to mention the starkness saturating them, that allows him to generate the galvanizing tension in his films. they all possess deeply unsettling aspects that pin you down and make you squirm in your seat. Aronofsky fearlessly puts you uncomfortably close to the naked truth, be it addiction, remorse, impotence, desperation, or the admission of failure. these are the themes that power his movies and make them unforgettable. and The Wrestler is no exception.

i went to high school with a guy named Eric Petz. along with a few others (i know you're not reading, but hi Denny, Sally, Jennifer), he was the cream of the drama department; i remember doing a small skit with him where i was a bum and he wanted my jacket (or maybe he was the bum and i wanted his jacket, i'm not clear on the details anymore, but bums and jackets were heavily involved), and we had a blast, but it was clear that he knew what he was doing and i ... did not. he even did a made-for-TV movie either during or shortly after our senior year (it was a tiny role, he was credited as "the dying boy," but still) and he's been in a ton of commercials (Taco Bell, Rooms to Go, etc.), but a few weeks ago i saw him in a Bud Light spot. and it made me wonder if he would get to be in one of the Bud Light Super Bowl ads, aka the Holy Grail of Commerical-dom, and sure as shinola, he was. if you watched, he was the guy drawing on the ski slopes who made the one dude go over a jump and the other dude crash through the trees. honestly, it was one of the weaker efforts of the evening (in fact, it made MSN's 10 worst list), but it was cool just to see him in an ad that cost $3 million to air. he goes by Eric Matheny now, and though he's done eps of Buffy (which was great, he got to manhandle Sarah Michelle Gellar) and CSI (i hope he called Caruso a wanker!) and Without a Trace, he hasn't made the requisite Law & Order appearance yet. he showed up at our 10 year high school reunion and acted a little too cool for school, but i let it slide. i'll always think of him as a skinny 9th grader who couldn't sit still for more than 30 seconds and who dropped phrases like "hot jizzum" when you least expected it. good times, Eric! hope to see you in the summer of '10 for the 20 year.

as for the rest of the commercials, i know everybody says it every year, but they weren't exactly incandescent feces. i liked the opening Bud Light bit with the where the company was looking to cut expenses, and the guy who suggests they not have Bud Light for every meeting gets thrown out of a fifth or sixth story window. i did like the Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head bit where he's driving and she's giving him grief and they almost wreck and her mouth comes off and goes down the side of the mountain. the movie trailers seem to have been big hits, with G.I. Joe and Transformers 2 apparently the clear winners, but i've read conflicting reports on the Star Trek promo, with some saying it was all-new footage and some saying it didn't show anything new over the first trailer attached to Quantum of Solace. (um, who cares? it's a damn trailer.) i can't get behind Land of the Lost; loved the show, but this goofy "reimagining" looks moronic. i don't think i need to remark on how useless Fast and Furious will be, but i do like the song in that clip. Up from Pixar also requires no comment (in fact, i'm already tiring of the "it's different, the main dude is OLD!" angle everyone online feels the need to exclaim about), but i'm really starting to get geeked for Monsters vs Aliens. Angels and Demons might be good, but it also might not, and Tom Hanks' hair doesn't seem like a huge improvement over the ghastly mullet he sported in The DaVinci Code.

and speaking of good times and the Super Bowl, i went to my buddy Don's house to watch the game. his two girls are hilarious, and they got pretty wound up after having a late dessert, running around and chasing each other, shrieking and giggling. Taylor would run by me, jump on the arm of the couch, swing her legs up and roll over into my lap, squirm when i tickled her armpits or her belly, then run off. we repeated this little scenario, oh, about two HUNDRED times during the third and fourth quarter. but one time in particular sticks out in my mind (for no real reason). she jumped and swung her legs up, but instead of rolling into my lap, she paused for a few seconds with her butt in the air ... and promptly tore off a really loud and lengthy fart. as soon as it ended, she resumed her roll and got up and ran off, completely unashamed, leaving me in breathless shambles to laugh until my bursting-with-chicken-wings-lemon-cakes-and-chocolcate-butterscotch-peanut-cluster-candies stomach hurt. i cried for at least five solid minutes. then i accused Don of secretly teaching his daughter this dastardly-but-admittedly-hilarious Twirling Ninja Fart Attack, and he refused even to comment on such a possibility. which, of course, means my theory is 100% correct.

A new and uninvited low, the Backlash co-creator relocation program, and the state of the boob ... tube

2009-01-31T02:03:00.000-05:00

i took my buddy John to see a screening of The Uninvited the other night. the movie isn't great, but the ending has a nice twist that saves it from being a complete disaster. a couple of things from the screening worth mentioning: 1) i've ranted about cell phone usage at the movies (in fact, there was some bee with an itch in front of us who sent no less than six text messages during the first half hour, but then thankfully quit), but someone there took things to a new level — this dude had his bluetooth earpiece in, and the farking thing BLINKED for the film's entire run-time. even though it's not as jarring as someone opening their phone during a particularly dark scene, i think it might even be more annoying, since it never stops and is so distracting it's basically impossible to ignore. 2) i know i'm not exactly covering new ground here, but why do some black people talk to the screen during movies? has this ever been sufficiently explained? if they're gonna do it (and trust me, after attending screenings like these for almost a decade, they're gonna), can't they at least spice up the commentary a little, throw a curveball for some variety? i mean, how many times can you say, "oh, hell no!" or some generic warning like "uh-uh! girl, you better run!" or "shit, don't go in there!" people who do this are rude, i'm-the-only-one-who-matters assholes with zero respect for the folks around them trying to enjoy a shared experience and they deserve to have their cars stolen while they're in the theater. 3) the plot involves a young girl who is institutionalized after her mother is killed in a fire. the movie establishes early on that her death wasn't an accident, and the main suspect is the dead mom's nurse, a woman whose name is Rachel Summers, which any X-fan worth their long box collection knows is the name of none other than ... the Phoenix, Cyclops and Madelyine Pryor's daughter from the future. made for an interesting touch.

Heather had an appointment on Friday, and Oliver's heartrate has come down to 134, but he's still healthy and doing fine. Heather has actually lost weight since she's been so sick; she's only up 12 pounds overall now. we have done and continue to do massive work converting the old office / second guest bedroom into the nursery. i've completely redone our attic storage situation, which will now accomodate more that twice what it held before. the room itself is in the process of being emptied; lots of books, clothes, and miscellaneous crapola have been removed, and i'm scouting our little remaining wall space for new homes for all my Brett Booth artwork, as well as my replica of Frodo's Sting and my diploma. after it's (finally) empty, it'll be time to paint and then we'll start erecting all of Ollie's furniture.

Kim Manners, producer and director extraordinaire on The X-Files, has died at age 59. The adventures of Mulder and Scully have been on my mind a little bit lately for some reason, i think because of a conversation or comment made by one of my friends about the current landscape of TV not really impressing them much lately. (i'm not sure i can get behind that; sure, Heroes sucks now, and Lost seems to have lost a little off its fastball, but The Office still rules, Fringe is good, plus there are tons of non-network shows that merit attention to varying degrees, shows like True Blood, Weeds, Californication, Mad Men, Big Love, Tool Academy (!), it's a sizeable list.) Manners' current program, Supernatural, is by all accounts pretty good, but seriously under the radar (in its fourth season and i've never heard of it). lastly, i always thought Manners was a chick, but apparently, he was a dude. oh. thanks for all your countless contributions to what is probably my favorite TV show of all-time.

i haven't sounded off on the Oscar noms yet, becuase, well ... there are still too many films that i need to see. i'm hoping this weekend will see us to Frost / Nixon and/or The Wrestler before they vanish from theaters. give me a week or so, and then you can dread an all-Oscars post where i channel my inner Jim Carrey and talk out my ass about the vast difference between who should win, and who's gonna.

Things I Learned About My Dad (In Therapy)

2009-01-29T02:41:00.000-05:00

i recently finished this collection of essays, edited by Heather B. Armstrong, aka the dooce chick, as a prelude to Oliver's impending arrival, which is now less than 10 weeks away. they were kind of a mixed bag, but there was something funny / interesting / note-worthy in just about all of them. some people were apparently a little annoyed that the two pieces of her own Armstrong chose to include had been previously posted on her blog (i.e. where they could be read for free). as i hadn't read either of them before, this didn't bother me. and i have to say, she's kind of grown on me — she has moments were she's extremely funny, to the point where i almost don't care if she's making stuff up or not anymore. but i don't read her with any frequency, usually only when Heather forwards me a link with instructions to read that day's post (leaving the implied "or else" hanging over the message like a threatening e-cloud). Armstrong and her husband also take some interesting pictures, but their house looks more like an austere and immaculate museum nobody ever visits, rather than a place inhabitated by real people, not to mention their four year old daughter and two dogs.

oddly enough, the book didn't set me to pondering about my own father, which made me wonder what that said more about, the book, or my relationship with him. but then i realized that i have one of the best dads in the world, something i've taken for granted for more than 30 years, so maybe it's just natural for me not to have to wonder about my life and his place in it. he's done (and continues to do) all the things great dads do: helped me fix up my house, yelled at me when i'm a bonehead, taught me the finer points of bodily function humor, didn't murder me when i screwed up and helped me learn from my mistakes. this doesn't mean we've always seen eye-to-eye, as clearly we haven't. i can still see the "you're gonna regret this" look on his face when, back in 6th grade, i insisted on a pair of Run DMC Adidas Superstars, complete with the super fat laces you weren't supposed to tie, as opposed to some boring blue Pony high-tops he thought i should get. he told me the Superstars were hideous (i think it was the laces he objected to the most) and that i should get something more conventional, but i wouldn't listen. i think i wore those things to Sweetwater Middle all of once, got mercilessly taunted for wearing "stupid rapper shoes," and they never graced my feet again. (even though my dad had been right, in retrospect, i wish i hadn't been such a pantywaste about it. those shoes were COOL. ah, peer pressure at its finest.)

but he's always been there, and what more can i really ask for? i just hope i can do the same, and be the same, for Oliver. and as a friend told me, if i'm already worried about being a good dad, then i'm off to a pretty good start.

The Best of 2008

2009-01-26T00:32:00.000-05:00

in order, here are my favorite eight movies of 2008:

#8. Son of Rambow — give me one good reason NOT to see a film about a small British kid who, after sneaking in to see First Blood at his local theater, decides to run around town shooting this titular sequel with his new best friend. (you can't, can you? ha!) a fresh look at childhood friendships, there is nothing cliched or cloying about this fantastic little movie. worth hunting for.

#7. Smart People — this movie cracked me up, and i was bemused and more than a little disappointed to see it summarily dismissed by audiences and most critics when it dropped into theaters back in April. it was filmed before Juno but released after, and thus Ellen Page caught a lot of "i liked Vanessa (Page's character) better the first time ... when she was Juno"-themed flack online. the similarities are unmistakable, but Page's approach to the material of two analogous characters isn't surprising, and it neither invalidates her performance nor makes it unrewarding. and Thomas Haden Church got similar treatment, basically accused of channeling his Sideways character, which i didn't buy. yes, they're both smug assholes, but in Sideways he was desperate and more than a little pathetic, whereas here he's a slacker who doesn't care enough about anything to be desperate. (do those sound the same to you? me neither.)

#6. Tropic Thunder — i said it before, but 2008 was a good year for comedies. TT took home the crown, though; it even sports a decent Ben Stiller performance (which i'm crediting to the masterful work of the rest of the cast forcing him to bring his A game on a daily basis), a rare thing these days. Robert Downey Jr. is as good as you've heard, but there is an uncredited cameo that hopefully hasn't been spoiled for you that really brought the house down for me. this kind of hysterical skewering of Hollywood shouldn't be missed.

#5. Gran Torino — i went in expecting a lot, but this really bowled me over. Clint Eastwood, at 78, not only still doing it, but doing it better than a vast majority of his peers. apparently this will be his final acting performance, and if that holds true, ... not a bad way to go out. sure, there are echoes of other classic Eastwood characters in Walt Kowalski, from William Munny to Frankie Dunn, but it's a fresh combination that never feels stale or borrowed (although there can be no doubt the writers had Clint in mind). i was also surprised at how funny it is, if irreverantly so. vintage filmmaking from one of Hollywood's legendary talents.

#4. Iron Man — Robert Downey Jr. as an alcoholic superhero? this is the role that revitalizes his career? (granted, this isn't part of the film, but Tony Stark is probably the most famous recovering 12 stepper in the history of comics) the irony is so rich you can take it to the bank and deposit it (which is exactly what Marvel did). here's hoping director Jon Favreau decides to adapt Armor Wars, one of the best Iron Man storylines to come down the four-color-separation pike and my personal favorite, as the plot for the next flick. oh, and since you've already done some recasting, with Don Cheadle replacing Terence "I greviously misjudged my importance to the franchise" Howard, any chance of bringing in a new face for Pepper? no? we're stuck with Gwynneth for at least two more films? sigh.

#3. Slumdog Millionaire — do you hear something? a low thrumming that's gradually increasing in volume and intensity? that is the sound of Slumdog Millionaire's impending Oscar sonic boom. this is a wonderful film. i loved its structure, the way director Danny Boyle stitched together its back-and-forth narrative, and there are some great transition shots. it's almost equal parts gut-wrenching drama and heartbreaking romance, but there are also small dashes of some unexptectedly fantastic comedy. the cast is uniformly excellent, but it is the kids who steal the show, and they did a fine job matching the actors who play the same character at different ages (particularly Salim). the soundtrack is interesting and cool, and be sure to stick around for the Bollywood ending. in short: believe the hype.

#2. The Dark Knight — there have been endless online discussions and gigabytes of text devoted to examining, dissecting, and deconstructing this film, so much so that i'm somewhat hesitant, loathe almost, to throw my hat into this particular e-ring. there are, however, two absolutes regarding this flick, no matter how you slice it, that must be mentioned: Heath Ledger's brilliantly maniacal performance as the Joker, and the affirmation of Christopher Nolan's place amongst Hollywood's directorial upper crust. as much as i love it, and as good as it is, even though i was blown away both times i saw it theatrically — the IMAX presentation in particular was staggering — there is something that's keeping me from labelling it as the Greatest Comic Book Movie Ever Made. the 17-year-old in me still tries fighting the good fight for Tim Burton's Batman, flawed though i've come to realize it is, because of the bizarre, seemingly disparate pieces and energies and questionable casting in that film that Burton somehow galvanized together to make, what i felt to be at the time, the ultimate Batman film. but despite all my gooey fanboy love, i know it's not fit to be the champ. Spider-Man is another contender, as is its superior Doc-Ock-supercharged sequel, but with all due credit to Toby Maguire's fabulous Peter/Spidey dichotomy, J.K. Simmons' pitch-perfect J.Jonah Jameson, and Sam Raimi nailing the essence of Spidey's universe, their work to sling it all up on screen like a flawlessly spun web is undone by the utter wet blanket of Kirsten Dunst's Mary Jane (you can tent your pants over the rain-soaked upside-down kiss all you like, but even if i grant you that one scene (and i'm not sure i do), her failure to embody MJ's fun-flirty-got-it-together essence is painfully plain). as i've gotten older, the film i think seems best suited for the throne ... is Superman. there's no denying Christian Bale force-of-nature-ness, but the duality of his Bruce Wayne/Batman isn't the sublime marriage of skill, timing, and essence-of-the-character embodiment that Christopher Reeve brought to Clark and Kal-El. (and yeah, i know everyone romanticizes all things Reeve in light of what happened, but that doesn't make my previous statement any less true. it just doesn't.) every element in Richard Donner's film is hitting on all cylinders: Reeve (obviously), Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor, Margot Kidder as Lois Lane, the production design of the Fortress of Solitude, Metropolis and the scenes at the Daily Planet, the kryptonite sequence and Miss Tessmacher's intervention that triggers the choose-which-missile-to-save scenario that puts Superman's character to the absolute test, a test that ultimately he fails when he decides to intervene and alter Earth's timeline in order to bring Lois back ... i mean, are you F-BOMBING kidding me? it doesn't get any better than that. i'm leaving the window open for The Dark Knight to overtake it, but ... i dunno. i have a hard time envisioning it happening.

(of course, i never thought it would happen with Burton's Batman either, so, there you go.)

and...

#1. WALL-E — brainier people more eloquent than me have serenaded Pixar with praise for over a decade, and everything they've said is true. there's no studio making more entertaining films right now. period. not only that, but currently no studio is smarter about making good movies, or more dedicated to that end. even when they have a bump in the road like they did with Cars — widely considered Pixar's "worst" effort to date — it's still a fun, entertaining, and wildly successful picture. and WALL-E takes all the best Pixar-ian element and amps them exponentially. but my favorite thing about WALL-E? ok, that's too hard to narrow down. how about the most interesting thing about WALL-E? it's got BALLS. an opening 40 minutes where the only dialog is some worn-out VHS clips of Hello, Dolly and a couple robot names? shots at our rampant consumerism and environmental disdain, coupled in with America's growing problem of obesity? (and director Andew Stanton can play coy and take the high road in interviews all he wants, he's not fooling anyone — the messages are in there, he knows they're in there, he effing PUT them in there.) but how silly and amazing and startling was it that the unlikey romance between sad, lonely little WALL-E and sleek, unaware-but-willing-to-look-beyond Eve was the part that stabbed my solar plexus like a jackhammer and then went to work on my heart strings like Rachmaninov ripping off his famous Concerto No. 3. this movie didn't just move me. it floored me. (and i thought maybe i was just in one of those moods the first time i saw it. nope. the theater got just as dusty the second go around.) watch it alone and i can almost guarantee you'll call the person you love as soon as it ends (or if they aren't around, you'll miss them with a ferocity that might be nigh on crippling). watch it with the person you love, and afterward, you'll squeeze their hand a little tighter, hug them a little longer, and feel lucky they're at your side, loving you back as much as their heart allows. if you can think of a better reason to like a movie than that, i'm all ears.

honorable mention: Choke, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Blindness, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, Body of Lies, Pineapple Express, Kung Fu Panda, Role Models

movies i wish i'd gotten the chance to see before making this list: The Wrestler, Doubt, Milk, Frost/Nixon, The Reader, Revolutionary Road, Let the Right One In

other bests from 2008:

→ the IMP's miraculous conception. DURR.

→ finally visiting New York City (even if it did come at the expense of losing some of my disdain for the in-townies. making fun of them got a teensy bit tougher, but thankfully most of them are still snobby jackasses who graciously provide you with belts of ammunition to feed your M-60 machine gun of mockery).

→ getting to experience Firefly and its treasure-trove of wonderful characters, if only all too briefly (and yes, i know it's on both lists, if you can't understand the point behind that, well, i can't help you ... at least, not without insulting you).

→ finding a job less than six miles from home. (do i even need to mention how kick ass that is?)

→ Cormac McCarthy's The Road. an unbelievably harrowing book that is breviloquent, bleak, and brilliant.

→ and finally, the best place to hang out if you have a puerile sense of humor (and a strong tolerance for the malodorous)? any men's bathroom at Hartsfield International. it's like getting a free concert.

Set phasers to shop

2009-01-23T02:14:00.000-05:00

Tuesday it was back to school for another Babies R Us class. the theme? "How to piss off your friends and family by registering for the most expensive items in the store." ok, they thinly disguised this under a veil of "Tips to help you register for things you will need but might overlook." but still.

they started off with a little game that i'm guessing is a big hit at baby showers, where you're supposed to guess the current 10 most popular names given to baby girls and boys. Heather and i went 2-for-10 on both lists; the girl list was a mixture of old school and modern, with Isabella (one of the names we liked if the Imp hadn't lost dual-X status) and Madison and Hannah and Elizabeth, but Abigail? not a fan. the boy list was pretty boring, if you ask me, with ho-hums like Andrew and William and Michael and Anthony, and the seemingly-done-to-death Ethan. this was a mini-snooze fest, at least for me, but then it got good when they asked if anyone had picked out a cool or unusual name for their kid yet.

this dude behind us said they were naming their son Hedon. that one slew me for some reason. it's a smorgasbord of built-in, vaguely redneck-soudning insults. "He-don squeezed the cheese! He-don got a boner! He-don crapped his pants!" it reminded me of one of my all-time favorite SNL skits. Nicholas Cage and Julia Sweeney are pregnant and discussing what to name the baby, and Cage proceeds to shoot down every one she proposes. "What about Bart?" "You can't call the kid Bart! All he'll hear is 'Bart the fart!'" "Well what about John?" "You can't call the kid John! It'll be 'Hey John, let's go to the john!'" there were a couple of other names and corresponding vituperations that sadly i've forgotten. but then at the end, Rob Schneider shows up and says, "I got a telegram for an Asswipe Johnson." and Cage shouts, "It's Ahz-WEE-pay!" priceless. (this is also the episode where Cage plays "Tiny Elvis" — "Man, look at that salt shaker ... that thing is huuuuuge!")

there was a guy attending the class who had the weirdest looking head. his head wasn't remotely round, it was tall and skinny, very cylindrical, and he had zero chin, so it looked like his neck came up from his shoulders and just went on forever, with his face plasetered on the front of it. in fact, he looked exactly like Beaker, minus the explosion of red hair. if his mouth had been a flap that opened downward like a drawbridge, i seriously would not have been surprised. i kept looking around for Dr. Bunsen Honeydew. freaky.

there were quite a few people there, and each couple got a scanner to use as they toured us around the store and proceeded to recommend one of everything. i noticed that, if the couple contained a guy (there were a handful of girls who came with a mom or a sister), then he was the one who carried the scanner, and i surmised that this was most likely because the thing looked pretty much exactly like a Star Trek phaser. so of course, i was obligated to point it at Heather and zap her repeatedly with it while making super awesome laser gun sound effects. and likewise of course, this prompted her to roll her eyes at me and make the Heather "OMG my husband is retarded" Face.

i shouldn't dump on these classes, they are free after all, and they do hook you up with lots of coupons, but they really make no effort to hide the fact that it's basically just a schill for every product they sell. the lady who runs them is nice and helpful and enthusiastic, but, uh, she doesn't exactly have the best grasp of the English language (although that's great for a butthole like me because she gives me plenty of ammo to pick on her). all of the previous classes have run right around an hour, but this one went over two hours, and Heather and i (ok, Heather did all the work, but still) have already registered for a ton of stuff online, and we already have all of our furniture and a pack-and-play and a stroller and lots of clothes, etc., and so what can i say? i got bored. i thought i had done a pretty decent job of hiding it, but i must have slipped up around the 1:45 mark, because that's when Heather, snarling at me through one of those gritted-teeth smiles that is meant to fool the casual onlooker but, if you're right next to her, leaves no doubt she's wicked pissed off, said, "You look really bored. Stop it. Or I'll kill you. And no one will ever find the body." allllll righty then!

The Worst of 2008

2009-01-22T02:55:00.000-05:00

in no particular order, the eight worst films i saw in 2008:

Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanimo Bay — loved the original (two chicks have a bathroom stall farting duel affectionately named "Battleshits." 'nuff said.) obviously the sequel, coming a few years too late, wouldn't measure up, but this train wreck is the best they could muster? overly long, not to mention overly unfunny, it gets high marks on the Disappointment Scale.

Lakeview Terrace — where to start? the Sam-Jackson-would-take-a-paycheck-to-[insert banal activity] jokes are waaay old hat. the dude pretty much poured gas on the fire of that theory by doing Snakes on a Plane (although shout-out to Heather for taking me to see it on our first wedding anniversary!). this is a stupid suburban thriller that wastes a decent premise with silly scenarios, bad dialog, and tepid direction. it also has a terrible trailer that gives almost everything away, except you really shouldn't care because knowing that much ahead of time ought to be more than enough to convince you not to waste time or (more importantly) money on a POS like this.

88 Minutes — there's nothing wrong with a by-the-numbers thriller, but this is a lame movie littered with inconsistences, goofs, bad performances, just horrible through and through. and i might just waive the five year waiting period on Al Pacino's 'do and go ahead and induct its many offensive incarnations into the Hollywood Bad Hair Hall of Fame. it's like he had in his contract that no comb could come within 40 yards of his head for the entire shoot. WTF.

Max Payne — makes the list for the sheer magnitude of its let down factor. i heard Mark Wahlberg talking this up all over the place, about how it was a return to old school action films, it kicks major ass, blah blah blah. the game had a great story that was ripe for adaptation ... and THIS is what they came up with? a butchering or outright omission of almost everything that made the game cool to begin with?!? nice. Mila Kunis is awful and terribly miscast, but in her defense, her character is tissue-paper thin, not to mention idiotically written. and then of course factor in The Wahlberg "This movie sucks and I've completely stopped caring" Face that Marky-Mark pulls about 10 minutes in, which you may have seen in places like Planet of the Apes or the next crawling-with-files pile on my list ...

The Happening — everyone has been going down the "wither hast thou wandered" road with M. Night Shyamalan. which is fine. i'm not as hard on him as most are, i liked the Village and Lady in the Water was OK, both of which were reviled by most critics and audiences at large. but just as there's no question that the quality of his films is slipping (not to mention dude has a massive ego problem), it's also clearly just as evident that the guy still has the chops and the capability to knock us all flat like he did with The Sixth Sense. the opening 30 minutes of The Happening is effective and legitimately creepy, not to mention gruesome. there is good squirm-inducing stuff here, something i can't and won't discount. however, the last half of the film and, more importantly its overall point, is flat DUMB. well, that may be harsh, i suppose the idea of the earth turning on humanity could make for an interesting movie, but Shyamalan's execution of said point is most definitely balls. and oh look — it's the second appearance on this list of The Mark Wahlberg Face! coincidence? me thinks NOT.

The Day the Earth Stood Still — i have but one word: Keanu. the movie's central figure is Klaatu, a detached and unemotional alien, which is actually an appropriate role for Canoe's bland and boring non-abilities, but —big shocker!— he STILL manages to suck the life out of the movie, and subsequently the audience, with his craptastic turn. did the filmmakers think he'd be a good choice because his name starts and ends with the same letters as the character?? i mean, come on! the man is amazing, but in completely the opposite way of anything you'd normally consider to be amazing. he's anti-amazing. and aside from a few admittedly cool special effects, the movie is dull, lifeless, and boring, even on IMAX. (i'll tell you what is amazing, though — the complete and seemingly irrevocable evanescence of Jennifer Connelly's body. she's had two kids — shouldn't she be growing, or at the very least not shrinking? what happened to my ridiculously-round-in-all-the-right-spots homegirl from Career Opportunities and The Rocketeer?)

10,000 BC — Roland Emmerich takes a lot of (deserved) crap online, but he's made some movies that, to varying degrees, i like. Stargate. The Patriot. Universal Soldier. (ok, this one's kinda pushing it, but it sports some good unintentional comedy and, at the time, Van Damme vs Dolph was an intriguing match-up.) but here, the story is brainless, the FX are weak, and the acting is pitiful. when the most interesting thing about your film is Camilla Belle's dreadlocks ... yeeeeaaah. next.

Prom Night — this movie is brutal. terribly conceived, boring kills, atrocious score (any horror film worth its copious fake blood has a creepy soundtrack), absurd set up (i don't think hotels that host proms allow students to book rooms there, but i could be wrong), it's beyond retarded. but if you have the chance to catch it on cable, may i suggest checking it out just to see Jonathan Schaech as the killer? what a riot. just thinking about it makes me want to rent Road House 2 and see his direct-to-video impersonation of Swayze-as-Dalton.

honorable mention: Street Kings (another Keanu turd bomb)

movies that most likely would have challenged for inclusion ... if i'd actually seen them: In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, Mad Money, Meet the Spartans, Fool's Gold, anything by Tyler Perry, What Happens in Vegas, The Love Guru, Meet Dave, Bangkok Dangerous

assorted other worsts from '08:

→ the film wasn't bad, but the box office failure of The X-Files: I Want to Believe almost assures no further films for the franchise. i love Chris Carter, but he sodomized the canine on this one. no question.

→ me becoming another in a long line of Russell Terziaks (aka the saddest sacks in the 'verse) who got talked into watching Firefly, only to have my heart broken and wish i'd never watched it in the first place. i know misery loves company, but DAMN.

→ having more knee surgery and losing 50% of my medial and lateral mensicus. bad times.

→ Heroes losing its way and becoming one of the worst, most-overrated shows on TV. i gave season two a pass because of the writers' strike, but that reprieve has come and gone. the second half of season three had better up the ante something fierce, or there will be no season four on my DVR schedule. book it.

→ trading Peyton Manning AND Thomas Jones and getting back Michael Turner ... and Gus Frerrote (who i don't think i ever started and i turned around and dropped him four weeks or so later, so in reality i traded Manning/Jones for just Turner). as if that weren't enough, i wound up facing the team i traded with in the championship round and Manning by himself absolutely torched me. U. G. L. Y.

→ being gun-shy on pulling the trigger on a number of items on eBay, not the least of which include: a Tusken Raider statue by Attakus, a rare green XXL Empire Strikes Back t-shirt by Junk Food (which i've never seen again), and a Mace Windu FX Lightsaber by Master Replicas (which is now out-of-print and continues to skyrocket in price).

Somebody kill Bondra, keep your helmet on around Ricardo, and the answer to Dushku+Whedon

2009-01-17T02:37:00.000-05:00

i got the latest issue of ESPN: The Magazine in the mail the other day. on the cover is a picture of Montreal Canadiens goalie Carey Price. and sometimes — not always, but sometimes — hockey makes me think of Swingers. you know, Trent and Sue, aka Super Fan #99, and the pixelated glory of Wayne's bleeding head. ("I took the Kings to the Cup." "Yeah, against the computer with the offsides off.")

(sidenote: this also made me think of NHL '97 for the Sega Saturn. Eric and i always played as the Philadelphia Flyers and annihilated the entire league, even though we couldn't keep five guys on the ice if our lives depended on it. peep this murderer's row of a lineup: Eric Lindros (in his absolute beastly prime), John LeClair (ditto), Mikael Renberg, Eric Desjardins (which we hilariously pronounced "dess-JAIR-dins"), and aging Hall of Fame superstud Paul Coffey. they called the Lindros-LeClair-Renberg line the Legion of Doom, for eff's sake! so of course our goal was always to run up the score while amassing a staggering number of penalty minutes and shutting out the other team. when it came to skunking the computer, there were a couple of opposing players who always gave us fits, like Paul Kariya and Brendan Shanahan, but the worst had to be Peter Bondra. he was just so fast, and there's no doubt the computer liked taunting you with his speed by mercilessly skating circles around your defensmen. there was nothing, and i mean nothing, better than lining up Bondra and managing to drill him with a bowel-loosening hit. whenever i pulled off this particular feat, i always felt like Rocky after he finally catches the chicken that Mickey makes him chase as part of his training. it took a while and was really frustrating, but MAN, the pay-off was sweeeeet.)

anyway, my hockey-Swingers rumination made me wonder about something — which number do you think is larger:

1) the number of times some dude at a bar has gone up to Vaughn and drunkenly shouted some variation of "You're so money!" or, 2) the number of times Vaughn has gotten laid as a direct result of being in the movie, given its powerhouse cult status and significant place in popular culture?

(obviously it has to be the former, but i bet the latter is still an amazingly high number.)

Ricardo Montalban passed away this week. i vaguely remember him from Fantasy Island, a show i know i watched but i can't recall any specific memories of me actually sitting down and watching it (if that makes sense). (wait, i just reread that and it doesn't make sense to me, either.) but obviously, it's Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan we all know and love him for, right? everyone knows the Star Trek Movie Theorem, (and if you don't, you really need some Geek 101, but it's even numbers good, odd numbers bad), just like everyone knows that Khan is the best film in the Trek canon. yes, there are portions of First Contact that are cool, but it's no Wrath of Khan. (i just gave real Trekkies apoplexy by comparing a Kirk flick to a Picard flick. um, how do you say "my bad" in Klingon?) the only one that i might consider an argument for is The Undiscovered Country, not coincidentally directed by Nicholas Meyer, the same dude behind the camera for Khan. the opening assassination sequence conducted in zero-G is heinous, but really, beyond that, it's no contest. and the reason for Khan's success and popularity outside of the hardcores is simple: it has a great villain, and it has some great action, both on and off the Enterprise. it's a simple formula that, for some reason, none of the other entries in the series really revisited (well, at least until the aforementioned First Contact). but it's the villain we're discussing, and Montalban made Khan deliciously fun to watch, and he mostly does it with nothing more than his voice. yeah, it skirts melodrama and narrowly avoids camp, but there are moments where its sheer intensity nails you to your seat/couch/theater chair (his repeated "Buried alive..." comes to mind). and let's not overlook dude's physique. Montalban was still a meat on into his 60s (when Khan was filmed), pumped at an advanced age even before guys like Clint and Sly and Arnold, and his awesome Ceti Alpha 5 costume put the buffness of his beefy pecs on full display. so queue up your Wrath of Khan DVD this weekend and pay upconverted, 5.1 surround sound-encoded homage to this iconic sci-fi villain.

couple of other random notes from this week:

Jackie Chan is not being considered to play Mr. Miyagi in the remake of Karate Kid that's not happening. i repeat: this is NOT HAPPENING. glad we got that settled.
Warner Bros. and Fox have finally buried the hatchet regarding the release rights to Watchmen, with Fox receiving a (presumably large) cash settlement up front and a portion of the flick's final box office. it appears no one really thought the March 6th release date was in jeopardy, that both studios were just talking tough; i'm not sure how valid that collective stance was, but i guess it's a moot point now.
my anticipation for Dollhouse, Joss Whedon's new TV show, is ramping up. of course, it has nothing to do with an ad we saw for it the other night, after which Heather asked me, "Is that a stripper show?" honestly, i'm not sure, but i'll be tuning in at 9pm on February 13th, 2009 to find out (or rather, that's when my DVR will be tuning in. i'll check things out at some point after that).

Three steps from wanting to dive-bomb Reginald VelJohnson's car and one cocky case of bronchitis

2009-01-15T02:29:00.000-05:00

we attended another baby seminar at Babies R Us, and the subject was getting your babies on a sleep schedule. on paper, it's a relatively simple process:

step one — give the child a bath
step two — give the child a massage
step three — spend quiet time with the child right before putting them down

easy, right? well — and obviously you can't do this until the child is at least a couple months old, i think they told us three months in the class — let's just say i'm very interested to see how this plays out in reality. (my version? dad puts child in tub, child gets excited and craps in tub. dad rips hair out of head, gives child to mom, cleans crap from tub. dad retrieves child to give massage, child relaxes and pees on self and dad during massage. dad gives kid to mom to cool off because quiet time impossible to attain. dad, having already ripped hair from head, goes to work peeling skin off face. dad takes kid back from mom, begins humming softly to child with lights low in preparation for sleep. child does not like hummed version of Baby Got Back, child pukes on dad. dad hands child back to mom before leaving house to find appropriately tall building/bridge off which to hurl himself.)

Heather put together Oliver's stroller the other night (thanks again Matt!). i had planned on doing it, but kept putting it off, mainly because, well, i detest most forms of manual labor, not to mention the fact that my body produces a force field that repels all tools, which prevents me from holding any handyman-related instrument long enough to actually do anything productive with it. (my theory is i bioengineered myself this way so i could just hand the tools to my dad, that way HE could do all the work.) it didn't take her long, either. i was sitting at the computer, the stroller still in its box. i got up for a minute, came back, and —boom!— the stroller was fully assembled, ready for various baby excretions and tantrums and the kind of abuse only frustrated parents trying to simultaneously hold their child and stow the thing in the trunk with one hand can throw at it.

unfortunately Heather has continued to be incredibly sick, since well before Christmas. remember the bronchitis i mentioned? the doctor gave her a low-level antibiotic that the bronchitis promptly laughed at and dismissed, much like Vader disdainfully holding his lightsaber with just one hand while dueling Luke at the end of Empire. so instead of getting better, it got worse, and the doctor had to put her on a stronger antibiotic even though he didn't want to, and he also gave her an inhaler to huff four times a day, which had the unfortunate side effect of jacking her heart rate through the stratoshpere and making it virtually impossible for her to sleep if she used it past 5pm. she seems to have turned the corner here lately, with her cough slowly drying up and her sleep pattern returning somewhat to normal.

i wanted to tease that i'm working on best and worst lists for 2008, so you can look forward to ignoring / deriding my choices in a couple of days.

This juggler keeps fragging me!

2009-01-05T02:36:00.000-05:00

happy New Year, hope yours was replete with the entertainment(s) of your choice, be it a quiet dinner at home, a night out bar hopping, sitting in front of the tube to watch multiple episodes of Weeds or Fringe or The Dark Knight on blu-ray, 12 uninterrupted hours of Wrath of the Lich King playtime, or what have you.

Heather and i wrapped up our marathon month-plus of travel with a trip to Hilton Head on New Year's Day to see her aunt Paula get married. i was excited to be there, for a few of reasons: 1) being out of town means not working, 2) i actually planned on taking advantage of the open bar (a super rarity on the order of a Thrashers win or a good episode of Heroes lately), and 3) i knew Heather's step-dad Billy would also be taking advantage of the open bar, and when Billy drinks, sometimes he gets a case of the giggles, and it doesn't get much better than that.

the ceremony was a low-key affair, only 23 people in attendance, and it was held outside in a hotel courtyard, much to the interest of the guests who happened to be on their balconies (one dude even busted out his binoculars in true Rear Window fashion). the weather was palatable and the ceremony was quick, highlighted by Paula's fiancée Pat ditching his cane Charlie Chaplin-style and sauntering down the aisle with her.

we came home on Saturday just to turn around and head down to Atlantic Station for Kouza, the latest show from Cirque du Soleil (pronounced SIRK doo so-LEEL). first, let me say that if you've never been, you really should go at least once. yes, the tickets are obscenely expensive. yes, you have to order them months in advance. but it really is worth it, and i highly recommend making (within reason) the necessary sacrifices in order to attend. with the way they set up the tents, there's not a bad seat in the house, and the performers are just mind-bendingly talented. allow me to try and illustrate (i concede there's little chance i can do written justice to what i saw during the opening act, but i'm going to give it a shot):

so a group of three female contortionists comes out in psychadelic jumpsuits and they proceed to torque and twist and fold their bodies into inhuman forms and poses with the kind of preternatural grace that is the dominion of truly elite ballet dancers, select comic book characters, and Greek Gods. the act builds as the degree of difficulty increases, the three of them constructing exotic human pyramids in a myriad of how-do-they-DO-THAT shapes and figures. but this one was the capper: one of them, starting in an upright position, her feet spread, began rolling her body backward, arching her back to a degree that you'd be hard pressed to convince me that someone hadn't replaced her spine with a Slinky. she put her hands on the floor behind her feet and eventually curled her head, neck, and shoulders up in between and through her own legs, her chin jutting forward to rest on the floor. she doesn't move her feet and they are now on either side of her shoulders. then she proceeded to WALK AROUND HER OWN HEAD, her feet going in a shoulder-to-shoulder semi-circle before she flip-flopped her legs like a hip-hopper doing a mid-air windmill to then start again on the other side. her chin never left the ground. if that paints even half the picture, you can see why i feel like it might just be the craziest thing i've ever seen.

i felt sorry for the solo trapeze artist who had to follow that. she was good, but you could tell crowd was still trying to process what they'd just seen from the contortionists, and it showed in their applause. the other act that really blew me away was the juggler. (the juggler? really? yes, the juggler, really.) he was effing phenomenal. he did seven ball showers, he juggled eight of those hole-in-the-center frisbee things, and he did some amazing between-the-legs, behind-the-back tricks. it was the speed, though, how fast he did everything, i think, that really did it for me; his hands moved so quickly, it was like a Bugs Bunny cartoon, they dissolved into an indecipherable blur of motion. just a sublime demo of intense concentration and unrivaled hand-eye coordination. astounding. if that guy plays Halo online, or something similar, i bet he's unkillable and can pick you off at will with a perfect headshot. it would be like gaming with Death (or Darth Tool at the height of his Quake 2 powers. ah, the good ole days, how i miss them).

The lull between Christmas and New Year's

2008-12-30T02:19:00.000-05:00

hope everyone's Yuletide celebration was as excellent as ours. Heather and i flew out on Christmas Day (a first for us both) to visit her sister Robin in Branson, MO. Robin's house is decorated like a 19th Century French palace and gives the Biltmore a run for its money. i took some pictures, but like an idiot i snapped them during the day, and as such calling them crappy is an insult to crappy things (i almost said an insult to Keanu, but of course, that's simultaneously ludicrous and impossible).

unfortunately, i finally succumbed to the bug that has nearly the entire US population in its grip and fell ill on our trip (as opposed to getting ill, which i haven't done since i sweated off about five pounds setting the dance floor aflame at our wedding). i typically only get sick once a year, so hopefully i now have until December '09 before my next cold, but i have a feeling our currently in utero Jedi will have something to say about that. (there was one benny to me being sick: i got to watch a righteous John Hughes triple header of Sixteen Candles, Weird Science, and Uncle Buck on the night where i really felt crappy and went to bed at about 6pm. yep — nothing like Farmer Ted slapping John Cusack around, Ian and Mad Max promoting sales at Towel World, and John Candy threatening Bug with ritual homicide to cure what ails you.)

we had lots of holiday fun hanging out with the Branson crew; Heather got to see her dad on Christmas for the first time in 16 years and saw both her older sisters at the same time and for longer than since before she hit puberty. meanwhile, i played plenty of Medal of Honor: Airborn, bought another Star Wars shirt i don't need, and basically just sat around, drinking copious amounts of egg nog and cracking a lot of jokes (with only some of them being off-color).

we saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button while we were there. i'm not much of a Brad Pitt fan, but the trifecta of director David Fincher, Cate Blanchett, and some Oscars buzz was enough to overcome my general Pitt non-fan-hood. in fairness, i'll say it right up front that Pitt is good, sometimes even great. Blanchett is fantastic, per her usual. technically, the film is a marvel to behold; Fincher has put a lot of his more gee-whiz shots to bed in favor of a more subtle style (ignoring the story, watch this and/or Zodiac and compare it to Panic Room), yet while still blending in the FX wizardry required to digitally transplant Pitt's head onto another actor's body and make it extremely difficult to tell that that is what's going on (there was one shot where it was barely perceptible, and even that was a blink-and-you'll-miss-it job). however, the story didn't grab me as fiercely as i was expecting. i liked it, but i didn't love it. also, Eric Roth wrote the screenplays to this and Forrest Gump, and the USA Today did a blow-by-blow story comparison — i confess to feeling a small twinge of Forrest-ness creeping in as i watched, but i was startled at how many similarities there are, and the extent to which they run. color me fascinated.

When I had my ulcers, I was farting razor blades

2008-12-25T02:26:00.000-05:00

it's Christmas Eve and i'm long overdue for a non-NYC-related post, so this might turn into a titanic tome. as such, i'd advise grabbing a [insert drink of choice, Mountain Dew for me please] and some [insert fave holiday sweet, i'm grabbing some buckeyes and maybe a molasses cookie or two] before you start perusing.

ready to go? OK. first, baby news. Heather has seen the doctor a few times this month, and Oliver is doing fine, he weighs over two pounds now, and his heartbeat is as strong as ever. mom has gained twelve pounds so far. we scanned the latest ultrasound pics, but they look terrible; if we can get a good scan, i'll throw them up later. unfortunately, Heather has been quite sick, acquiring some lovely bronchitis to go with her normal pounding headaches and did-i-just-eat-some-magma heartburn. WHEE. Heather remains convinced that Oliver will be coming early, but we've yet to hear anything officially changing his April 7th arrival date.

i know i tortured you with multiple posts on both the Halloween and Thankgiving Movie Festivals, but i haven't been able to do that for the Christmas incarnation, so i'm just going to hoark them all up now in one big list:

Beavis & Butthead — first off, let me say that Mike Judge is a genius. he doesn't deserve the black sheep rep he gets in Hollywood, even if he is a pain in the ass to work with. anyway, there are two holiday episodes, B&B Do Christmas and B&B, A Very Special Christmas. the first one they just sit around and watch Christmas music videos. i laughed so hard i cried twice, once when they showed Beavis' reaction to a Boy George video, the other when they cut to commercial with "On Dasher, on Dancer, on Prancer ... uhh-huh-huh-huh-huh." the second one is a take-off on A Christmas Carol where Beavis is a manager at Burger World and meets the ghosts of Christmas (one of whom is Buzzcut), but they also had segments where Butthead reads Christmas letters from real fans who sent them to the show. this culminates in several chicks asking Santa to give them Beavis for Christmas. unadulterated hilarity.

Trading Places — i feel certain i extolled its virtues on several ocassions at MRR, but in case you're new to the party, there really isn't any reason you shouldn't watch this every holiday season. it's ridiculously quotable (from "He was even wearing my Harvard tie, like oh sure, HE went to Harvard" to "Of course there's something wrong with him — he's a NEEE-gro" to "Five dollars. Maybe I'll go to the movies ... by myself.") and sports vintage Eddie Murphy, Don Ameche dropping the F bomb, Paul Gleeson being dastardly while wearing some horrific red slacks, and James "Let's go, Winthorpe" Eckhouse's film debut. Oh, and whoever decided to call the latest DVD release the "Looking Good, Feeling Good" edition is more money than Double Down Trent ever dreamt of being.

Mixed Nuts — our first time watching this, and i'll refrain from making the obvious joke that i'm sure 95%+ of all critics made when this middling effort from writer/director Nora Ephron hit theaters back in 1994. the bad news is that Steve Martin was already in steep decline, Juliette Lewis is involved, and it has Adam Sandler doing his SNL idiot voice. the good news is you get some skinny Anthony LaPaglia (aka one of Heather's Other Husbands) and a funny Rita Wilson performance. but Liev Schreiber steals the whole damn movie — it's worth renting just to see him prancing around in fishnets and high heels.

When Harry Met Sally — hadn't seen this in a long while and had actually forgotten a few of the choicer moments. was great to see Billy do the White Man's Overbite, complain about getting dumped in front of Mr. Zero, and hear him leave his multiple choice voicemail. and how absurd was his ladykiller status in this? it's not quite David "I routinely bag Playboy Playmates" Spade territory, but it's definitely up there. nice to see Meg Ryan at her absolute apex and duking it out with Julia Roberts for the right to wear the tiara as America's Sweetheart. also boasts the original Pictionary party scene where people yell idiotic and hysterically bad guesses at the person doing the drawing. makes me miss Bruno Kirby and lament the fact that he and Billy Crystal never kissed and made up before his death in 2006.

Grumpy Old Men — hadn't seen this in even longer (between this, WHMS, and the B&B specials, it was a good year for revisiting stuff). not sure there's ever been a better opening line for a character than Matthau's "Morning, dickhead!" also wins the Best Dirty Old Man award in the form of cantankerous, innuendo-spouting Burgess Meredith. still amazes me that this came from the pen of Mark Steven Johnson, who would go on to write/direct two pretty terrible Marvel films, Daredevil and Ghost Rider. with that in mind, i would love to know the percentage of stuff that Lemmon and Mathau ad-libbed. but with both stars dead, we won't get a first-hand account if they ever decide to revisit the DVD, which is one of the most serious in-need-of-a-new-special-edition discs out there. give us a widescreen release at the very least, FFS.

Home Alone — this should need zero explanation. my quintissential Christmas movie, probably due to a combination of the priceless slapstick and sticky sentimentality. i know a lot of people swear by A Christmas Story, but that's another popularity phenomenon, much like Angelina Jolie, Gwyneth Paltrow, and the PS2, that i've never understood. i watched it once, did nothing for me. i probably need to give it another chance, but my gut feeling is that my opinion won't change much. same with Christmas Vacation — we watched that a few years ago, and i spent the first thirty minutes asking my brother, "um, when's it going to get funny?"

movies i lament we didn't get to this year: Elf, The Family Man, A Muppet Christmas Carol, Die Hard, Love Actually

i spent most of today running around finishing up my shopping, and though it's usually beyond crazy, i always enjoy it. just drives it home for me. i love the decorations and the atmosphere. (and yes, i'm fairly positive i've got a cell in Arkham with my name on the door.)

hope everyone has a stupendously Merry Christmas with your closest family and friends, frivolity and fun being the order of the day.

Revisiting The 25th Hour

2008-12-12T00:48:00.000-05:00

still trying to decompress from the trip and get plugged back in at work. i finished reading The Poo Bomb while we were out of town, so i was looking to start a new book. given its New York setting, i thought it appropriate to finally read The 25th Hour by David Benioff, and then rewatch the flick. i'm a big fan of the film, which Benioff wrote the screenplay to himself, so i was curious to see not only what changes he made adapting it for Spike Lee, but also to see how much of the city i would recognize (turns out some, but not as much as i thought).

the flick is, i think, one of the best from '02-'03, yet it seems still largely undiscovered — typically when i ask people, they've rarely heard of it, which, given the talent involved, is rather shocking. Edward Norton. Barry Pepper. Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Rosario Dawson. Anna Paquin. Brian Cox. it's a ridiculously talented cast, and everyone is on their A game and in the zone.

i know Lee's films aren't for everyone, but most of them can at least be appreciated technically; however, his bitterness and generally pissy attitude aren't doing him any favors with the moviegoing public. (Lee's war of words with Clint Eastwood not long back is a highly enjoyable example of this. when he bitched that Clint's two Iwo Jima pictures ignored the contributions made by black soliders during WWII, Clint basically told him to shut the eff up. classic.) i don't love many of his lauded early efforts, like Do the Right Thing or Jungle Fever, but i really enjoyed Summer of Sam, and Lee takes everything great about that film — the taut atmosphere, the lack of a racially charged narrative, some interesting lighting — and builds on it. most of The 25th Hour looks simple and straight forward, though it's anything but, and i love Lee's trademark "glide" shots, where the actor appears motionless but the action around them recedes and pans out.

i also give Lee and Benioff full marks for the unflinching incorporation of 9/11 into the story; the film shot during early 2002, the destruction of the World Trade Center still a raw wound, open and bleeding, and the film dives in with absolutely no anesthetic — we get multiple wide shots of the dramatically altered New York skyline, two huge spotlights emitting ghostly gravemarkers where the Towers stood, not to mention a lengthy elevated POV montage of the then-unfathomable clean-up effort at Ground Zero.

the film, however, does have a fatal flaw. the closing scene in the book only takes a couple of pages to unfold, but Lee chose to shoot Benioff's exposition entirely, which adds around 15 minutes that clunkily ruin the film's otherwise sleeknees and could have easily been trimmed. in fact, there is a perfect place to end the film right before this happens, and if Lee fades to black there, i believe it's his masterpiece. (in fact, whenever i watch the DVD, i just stop the disc early and skip the bloat at the end.)

NYC day six — last stop on the movie tour, best junk usage ever, do you really need a picture of that, esoteric superhero analysis

2008-12-10T02:02:00.000-05:00

our flight home was scheduled for 3pm, which meant leaving Tiffany's around 1pm, which left us the morning hours to squeeze in some last minute shopping and Kodak moments. after a hasty breakfast at the corner diner, we schlepped down to the New York public library (where Uncle Ben gets shot in Spider-Man, the spectre wanders the stacks in Ghostbusters, to reference a few filmic NYPL appearances).

several freezing photos later, we cruised the kiosks and vendors in Bryant Park, which is adjacent to the library and presented the third and thankfully final ice skating rink temptation. Heather and i picked up a small, funky rendering of the NY skyline called "From Manhattan to Brooklyn," in honor of our first full day in the city. we also scored Eric a thank-you gift for watching the dogs — a Predator figurine from this shop called Metal Park, which offers work by a group of Thai artists who make sci-fi sculptures out of recycled car and motorcycle parts like spark plugs, drive chains, etc. they had tons of Star Wars stuff, including life-size C-3PO, R2D2, and Yoda pieces, as well as Aliens and Transformers and a few others, all of which were pretty amazing.

i also took pictures of the Times Square AMC 25 and Regal Cinemas that we didn't get to patronize. and after five days of heavy sightseeing and walking in the cold, let me assure you that dragging my pregnant wife a dozen extra blocks just to photograph a couple movie theaters cost me quite a few Geek Dollars.

we made it back to Tiff's apartment, loaded up, and were hailing a cab at 1pm on the dot. this time the fare was merely $35, and after a fairly painless jaunt through security (although i did have to pull Eric's Predator out, the scanner dude thought it was some kind of weird tool or something), we were boarding flight #925, which would return us to the world of work, dog-walking, driving, doing laundry, and all the other mundanities (i just made that word up) of life in suburbia.

which brings me to something i want to mention: even having previously visited some of the bigger cities in the world, like London and Paris, for whatever reason (maybe because they're all overseas and i could never really belong to any of them), i'd never understood the appeal of living in the city. i used to roll my eyes whenever pretentious Urbanites orgasmically extolled the virtues of Life in the Big City, while simultaneously and condescendingly condemning the dolldrums of living anywhere else, as if my existence was fundamentally inferior to theirs solely becuase i reside in a different zip code. and while i still will roll my eyes at such obvious over-glorification of the urban lifestyle, i now can appreciate the appeal. having never lived outside the 'burbs, i couldn't comprehend the vitality it infuses, the effusive exuberance it begets. i'm not sure i could make the transition, but at least now, i can understand the power, the sway, it can hold over people. there is definitely something intoxicating about New York. it's got this tangible aura, a charge that thrums along the streets and over the bridges and across the parks and down the subway tunnels.

(i'm about to go a little off the deep end, but bear with me, it makes sense, i promise. OK, it makes sense to *me* and that's as good as i can give you.)

there is a Wildstorm comic book character called Jack Hawksmoor, and i always kinda liked him, but i never really could connect with him, because i couldn't understand or relate to him much at all. Hawksmoor is called the King of Cities; he can communicate with them, feels that each one has a definitive presence, even a soul. as such, his powers are systemic, both an extension of whatever metropolis he's in and a function of his empathic understanding of all cities — the bigger and stronger the city, the more powerful he is; the more damaged and dilapidated, the weaker. he can manipulate his environment in a variety of ways, move through cityscapes at unrivaled speeds, manipulate structures and use a city's systems, its very geography, as weapons. it's a symbiotic releationship — the city's enemies are also his enemies, and vice versa; cities respond to Hawksmoor's wishes because of his deep rapport with them, not because he tries to force them to do his bidding.

like i said, i never really understood the character. but now, after this trip, i do. because i felt it, that undeniable presence New York and other cities like it possesses, which inspired Warren Ellis to create him. i know it sounds stupid, ridiculous; believe me, i'd have been lining up to make fun of the previous paragraph as recently as a week ago. now, however, it seems to me that Ellis was able to quantify and personify that thing, that surreal-but-oh-so-real New York essence, and distill it perfectly into Jack Hawksmoor. and i think that's pretty damn brilliant.

NYC day five — please beat your child, the Doug Tract candystore, can somebody put the game on

2008-12-08T04:29:00.000-05:00

FAO Schwartz was originally on the agenda for Friday, but we wound up having to shuffle things around when we didn't make it to the National History Museum on Thursday as planned. The idea was to be there when they opened at 10am and hope everyone else didn't have the same notion. Well, in a shocker of shockers, we didn't make it there by 10am, and there was already a queue to get in when we showed up. luckily, though the line was lengthy, it didn't last long — it took a little over 10 minutes before we were allowed inside, which ruled because it was around 19 degrees out (not counting the wind chill). but as we waited in line, we bore witness to a terrifying spectacle, one that frankly i would have dismissed as patently ludicrous: there was a child directly in front of us who did not want to go inside FAO Schwartz. and he wasn't pulling a little stick-out-my-lower-lip-making-me-do-something-i-don't-want-to-do pouting, either. this kid was pitching a fit. full-on, dig-in-the-heels, leaning-backwards-with-all-his-weight, you-can't-make-me, flat-out REFUSAL. i'm not making this up (i have witnesses). as we tried not to gawk in wide-eyed disbelief, his parents were ignoring him, merely chatting to pass the time like their son isn't having his own personal reenactment of the Chernobyl meltdown. meanwhile, his two brothers were staring in all the windows with the same feverish look i used to get poring over the toy section of the Sears Christmas catalog. initially, the mom was holding The Recalcitrant Kid's hand, and she was gamely trying to drag him nonchalantly along as TRK mewled like a cat whose tail has just gotten repeatedly crimped by a hot waffle iron. this wasn't working so well, so she passed him over to the dad, which somehow managed to make things worse. TRK starts *hitting* the dad. and when i say hitting, i don't mean the harmless flailing i've seen some kids do when they lose their crap and they accidentally connect a time or two. when i say hitting, i'm talking TKR was purposely, in total premeditation and fully cognizant of his actions, WHACKING HIS FATHER REPEATEDLY WITH A CLOSED FIST *AS HARD AS HE COULD*. naturally i'm trying not to laugh my ass off, but then Heather turns to me gravely and says, "are we really sure we want to have one of those?" this cut the laughter off rather abruptly. is it crazy to hope that Heather's revulsion at TRK's behavior somehow generated a physiological response, triggering a massive chemo-hormonal release from her brain that Oliver will absorb in utero which will genetically program him to immediately cease and desist all such heinous and parental-sanity-destroying activities the instant i whistle the opening bars to the Star Wars theme? and if so, is it wrong that i actively wish to subject my unborn son to obviously subversive behavioral conditioning that will force him to be hypnotically controllable, ala The Manchurian Candidate?

(i say no.)

unfortunately, TRK and his family were swept away from us the moment we stepped inside the store, never to be seen again. it was pretty incredible; they have some really old fashioned stuff, like toy trains and wooden soldiers and the like, but then you can also get a Lord Voldemort replica wand and a jewelry box with a holographic depiction of The One Ring that disappears when viewed at certain angles. we also got to see the light-up floor piano from Big, but two really annoying FAO Schwartz employees were doing a show where they recreated the songs Tom Hanks and Robert Loggia danced out, so i was bummed not to be able to get my picture taken on it. the Lego section was also killer, and i really enjoyed the candy shop, which is amusingly named FAO Schweetz (alas, they do not have a promotional arrangement with the Greaseman). Tiffany was kind enough to buy Oliver a wooden puzzle of the FAO Schwartz signature toy soldier, and Heather and i got him a dangly mobile for his crib. we seriously considered buying a large hanging map of the US with big felt signs and other doo-dads identifying each state, which we thought could hang in his room for years, but regrettably we passed.

from there we crossed the street to Bergdorf's, where Heather was disappointed that a $93 lip gloss was sold out in the flavor she wanted. i, on the other hand, was not disappointed, but i hid my lack of chagrin poorly, and as a result was soundly rebuked for my lack of empathy. (hormones, they are a wicked mistress!)

we walked around a bit after, cruised past the Plaza hotel, which features prominently in classic films like North by Northwest and Home Alone 2. then we made our way to and through Central Park. we took loads of pictures and soaked in the scenery and enjoyed ourselves, despite making "shit! it's cold out here!" faces in most of the photos, which might seem to indicate otherwise. once again i was taunted by an ice skating rink, but i was able to persevere. there also was a carousel, but i feared generating a "36 y/o male frozen to merry-go-round horse like total wussy!" headline in the NY Post, so we skipped that, too.

the trudge was long and cold, and finally we caved and hopped a cab, where eventually we arrived at Sarabeth's for brunch (and mercifully to thaw out), which warrants mentioning because it was proabably Heather's favorite meal of the trip (definitely in the top two). hello, warm, fluffy french toast with real maple syrup and bacon thick enough you could shingle your roof with it? yes, please!

from their we did a little shopping, including a stint in this store called Verve, where they sold purses and jewelry and accessories, and Tiffany's friend Sharon bought a hat there ... that cost $118. sure, it was cute, but, i mean, IT'S A HAT.

(of course, i immediately thought of this classic Bruce Willis—Damon Wayans back-and-forth from The Last Boy Scout:

"leather pants."
"yeah."
"what's something like that run?"
"six-fifty."
"six hundred and fifty ... dollars?"
"yeah."
"they're pants?"
"yeah"
"you wear them?"
"yes."
"they don't, like, have a TV in 'em or something?"
"nope."
"i am very old.")

from there we sauntered over to the Time Warner building where we tried to get a drink, but the bar was closed to non-guests of their hotel, so we left. i did get a cool shot of some of their Christmas decor, though.

after that we rode the bus home and cooled our heels before meeting back up with Tiffany's friends Curtis, Sharon (aka The One Who Paid $118 for a Hat), and Leslie for dinner at the local sports bar, Blondie's, where we were able to watch the Redskins-Ravens tilt on all 74 flat panel HDTVs (at least until Curtis asked them to put on the Flames-Rangers game, which brought the tally down to a barely-sufficient 73). we ate chicken wings (well, the smart people did) and hung out for a long time, all the while receiving subpar service from our porn star lookalike waitress (no other way to describe her, she just had that look, it was a combo of the way she carried herself and her hair and lips). after that we all went back to the lobby of Tiffany's and Sharon's and Leslie's building, where we all stood around talking and laughing loudly until their super came out and irately demanded that we shut the hell up and/or buggar off, and it was quite clear he didn't care which option we chose, or in what order we did them, so long as the noise ceased that very instant.

tomorrow we only have the morning hours before we have to head to LaGuardia and fly home. saying goodbye to the city will be harder than i ever thought it would.

NYC day four — new signage suggestion, the Positive Brothers are lollygagging reverse racists, we know drama, losing my selection privileges

2008-12-07T05:04:00.000-05:00

haven't mentioned the weather much outside of it being cold during the City Lights bus tour, but after getting close to 50 degrees on Thursday, it's been cold and windy, just this side of brutal, and it's supposed to get colder today and tomorrow, with a chance of snow. we bundled up accordingly and made tracks for the Staten Island ferry. she's one of the most recognizable landmarks in the world and has been desecrated in more than a few movies (my fave might just be Cloverfield, but X-Men, Ghostbusters II, of course the original Planet of the Apes, all have taken their shots), but the Statue of Liberty really was something to behold in person. we were able to get to the front of the ferry on the trip out, but the foward observation deck was rather small and crammed with people. i was petrified that someone whose lower intestines were lit up on indian or mexican food would grease one and wipe out half the crowd before we ever caught a glance of Her Green Coppery-ness. (when i mentioned to Heather and Tiffany they should have a "no flatulence" sign, complete with a picture of someone blowing a poofy gas cloud out their butt, i got exactly the kind of "are you high?" face you'd expect. i can't be the only one to have wondered if you squeezed off a really long one outside when it was cold enough, it would be visible, just like how you can see your breath? i'm not alone on this, right? hello?)

the ferry dumps you out right near Battery Park, so we wandered around a bit, then hit up our first street vendor for some pretzels and hot dogs. Heather took one bite of her pretzel and threw it away. then she choked down half a spicey sausage dog because she knew i'd kill her if she chucked it after a single chomp. we took a couple pictures then came upon a crowd; there was music and cheering, obviously something going on, so we walked over to see some street dancers doing their thing. two guys calling themselves the Positive Brothers were doing a mix of hip-hop and gymnastics, and they were actually pretty good. they were also kind of funny, shamelessly working the crowd, at least until they got to their "finale," that is. they grabbed a few kids from the audience and lined them up, and it was apparent that one of the Brothers was going to jump over them into a dive roll, or something similar. but after arranging the kids, they went into their money collection spiel, both guys grabbing big canvas bins and basically putting it front of everyone in the crowd. whenever they actually got a donation, they would yell for someone to stop the music (some dude was working their CD player for them), and shout out how much they got. as in, "yo! stop the show! stop the show! i got FIVE dollars!" then they would ask the person where they were from and so on. well, there was a black girl who gave them a $20. and we proceeded to get this announcement: "YO! stop the show! stop the show! i got TWENTY dollars from a black girl! do you know what that means?? that means the WHITE people have to pay FIFTY dollars!!" OK, mildly amusing, but doing it after each and every donation totally killed it. so they're pumping folks and going around to everyone, and guess who's sticking out of the crowd like a 6'6" white dude at a Lil' Wayne concert? yours truly. so of course, dude comes over and stands right in front of me, money bin fully extended, and says, "do you see me standing in front of you, brother?" (needless to say, he didn't get 50 bucks out of my cheap ass.) and they kept ... dragging ... it ... out. finally we got so annoyed that we left without ever seeing them do their stupid finale.

we walked past the old customs building in the financial district up to the Merrill Lynch bull. there was actually a pretty big crowd there hanging out and snapping pictures. now, the bull is anatomically correct. given the way my mind works, i was interested to see what people would do regarding his ... bits. i was surprised (although i guess i shouldn't have been) at how many young girls got down there and rubbed, cradled, and/or otherwise fondled his sack. there was also some faux-kissing, and one girl lay down, arched forward, and just opened her mouth as wide as it would go. lovely. so naturally, i had to get into the act, and i used my height to my advantage.

after embarrassing Heather at the ML bull, we walked over to Ground Zero, but there really isn't much to see now. most of it is blocked off by fences, and though you can tell the constuction for Freedom Tower is under way, again, there's nothing really to see. we did see some interesting relics from 9/11 though, including the cast remains of the roots system from a tree that was unnearthed when the towers came down. sobering, but fascinating.

from there we walked through Chinatown. not sure what i was expecting but ... while it was kinda cool to see, we didn't go there to shop for knock-offs (although i would have made an exception for some Swap Meet Louie), so there really wasn't much to it. after that we hit up Foley Square to see the Manhattan Supreme Court building, which is where Law & Order shoots its exterior court scenes (it's also in the opening credits).

we were tired from the cold and the walking (not to mention still smarting from the brazen assumption we'd pay $50 for some mediocre street dancing, some of which they never actually got around to doing), so we decided to be lame and chill out for a while and then go to the movies. we threw several choices around — Changeling, Slumdog Millionaire, Rachel Getting Married, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas — but the only consensus seemed to be avoiding something depressing, which effectively ruled out everything mentioned. then i remembered that Punisher: War Zone had opened and that i had actually read a good review, and since no one offered up significant opposition, that was the pick. with our movie selected, now it was time to choose a theater. i wanted to go to the big AMC in Times Square, but for some reason, they were unable to find room on one of their TWENTY-FIVE screens for one of the new releases for the weekend. WTF! i was surprised to see that a couple of other big first-run theaters, including the AMC's Time Square rival, Regal Cinemas, also weren't running P: WZ. so we went to the AMC/Loews on 84th street, which Tiffany said typically draws a rowdy crowd down from the Bronx on the weekends. secretly disappointed that we weren't seeing Rush Hour 4 or the next Tyler Perry flick, we scored our $12 tickets and made our way into a empty theater (we were a little early, but surprising nonetheless). i'll skip the play-by-play and sum up: i enjoyed the Thomas Jane 2004 Punisher more than everyone i know (except for my buddy Don who loved it), appreciating what it was and not hating it for what it wasn't, but with a few notable exceptions, it never really felt like a Punisher movie to me. well, the filmmakers corrected that oversight with War Zone, but they still didn't manage to make a very good flick. Ray Stevenson efficiently replaces Thomas Jane (he has an early era Schwarzeneggarian word count, with maybe 25 lines of dialogue the entire film) and they actually use two good villains from Frank Castle's rogue's gallery in Jigsaw and Looney Bin Jim, but Dominic West is ridiculously miscast in the former role (and sports an unbelievably poor make-up job to boot), and while LBJ works on paper, even a maniacal Doug Hutchison couldn't make this version watchable. director Lexi Alexander wisely decided to crank the violence quotient by several thousand percent over the '04 incarnation; i didn't think a Punisher film could go *too* overboard on the violence tip, but Alexander somehow manages to pull off that seemingly impossible feat. some of it works, but some of it is just comedic, and then some of it just doesn't work at all. as such, it didn't really grab Heather or Tiffany; they both fell asleep at various points, sometimes for loooong stretches at a time. so if we punk out again tomorrow night and decide to go see something else, needless to say, not only will i be told what we're seeing, i'm sure i'll be instructed to like it as well.

kick butt side-note: it snowed on us going to and coming back from the theater. nothing heavy, but enough to mark Get Snowed On in New York City During Christmas Time off my to-do list.

Guess my favorite bird

2008-12-06T04:45:00.000-05:00

NYC day three — the Sundance Kid in outer space, did she just rearrange her package, runaway equine netherflesh, dinner with Shaq (but not really)

2008-12-06T04:37:00.000-05:00

since we had to crapcan it yesterday due to my unstrategic planning boner, we decided to make the American Museum of Natural History the opening act for today. we wandered through dozens of different halls, marvelling at the things on display: birds, reptlies, African mammals, human biology, insects, cultural artifacts, meteorites, gems, and of course, dinosaurs. you could easily spend an entire day here, possibly two if you chose to partake in all of the extra exhibits (including an IMAX theater) that run at the museum at any given time. we had less than half a day to spend, so we chose the planetarium show called Cosmic Collisions as our only extra. some of the others sounded interesting, like The Butterfly Conservatory, Lizards & Snakes: Alive!, Saturn, and Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure, but i'm pretty sure we made the right call — Cosmic Collisions ruled, and it was worth breaking my neck to watch 30 minutes of Robert-Redford-narrated, ceiling-projected NASA satellite footage of sun spots and solar flares, detailed CGI simulations on the formation of the moon, the meteorite strike that (literally) toasted the original Jurassic Park, an Armageddon-Deep Impact killer asteroid scenario (although the theoretical solution favored currently isn't attempting its destruction, but rather to fly a spacecraft alongside it, in hopes that the ship's gravitational field would slightly but sufficiently alter the asteroid's trajectory enough that it will bypass Earth), as well as some killer graphical depictions of the solar system, with all the planets' orbital pathways lit up and color-coded, showing rotational direction and speed, including that of all their respective moons, as well as the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. in a word: HEINOUS. and speaking of heinous, we took a bathroom break at one point and were standing near a water fountain when this woman did the most amazing hitch-up-my-jeans-before-i-flash-the-world-my-butt-crack manuever i've ever seen — she grabbed a belt loop on either side of her hips, stuck out her butt and dropped it down so that her thighs were parallel to the ground, then scooped her pelvis down and thrust it foward (Elvis would have been both proud and jealous) and YANKED, going up on her toes and practically lifting off the ground. it was amazing, but also alarming and potentially dangerous. she did all of this utterly unself-consciously in front of her husband and child, not to mention a hallway full of tourists. (the thought crossed my mind that she might be a hermaphrodite; i mean, i've seen guys adjust their junk in frighteningly similar ways. if so, more power to the Dad, but ... *yikes*.)

after busting hump through the museum for nearly five hours, we caught the metro and set out for Rockefeller Center, to see the famous Christmas tree and the skating rink and all that. there is an underground complex of shops and restaurants that connect all the buildings to the subway at Rockefeller, and we wandered past all the shoppers and brokers/lawyers/executives/whatevers power lunching amongs one other, the place a cornucopia of expensive hand bags, designer shoes, black pea coats, laptops and cell phones. the tree is humongous, over 70 feet tall, weighs a staggering eight tons, and has 30,000 LED lights on it, which makes for more than five MILES of wire encircling it. unfortunately, the Zamboni was out scrubbing the skating rink (in fact, this is one of the few disappointments of the entire trip, that we never went ice skating, although i really wasn't keen on letting Heather (clumsily) glide around on a couple of skinny knife blades high above a sheet of hard ice. oh well. something for next time, when all three of us can do it).

we got to see Tiffany's office on Park Avenue and watch her do lawyerly things before going to the Big Apple Circus, where the tent was set up near Lincoln Center and Damrosch Park at 62nd street. we had super sweet seats in the 2nd row, where we could see the absolute lack of body fat on the jugglers and acrobats and the tightrope and high wire folk, feel the wind from the dogs dashing around the ring doing their various tricks, and almost get slapped in the face by horse genitalia as the show stallion pranced around under guidance from the handler's whip. one of the doggie performers was a Schnauzer who only looked a little like Oscar, but acted EXACTLY like Oscar would have done under similar circumstances (i.e. he ran around and barked while all the other dogs behaved and did as they were told). my favorite parts were the jugglers and a clown/mime who did a wind-up mannequin act with another clown that was awesome, he did some incredible things with his body. another cool but strange act was a Chinese guy who threw/caught/balanced progressively bigger vases on his head. i came within a couple seats of getting selected to compete in a dance competition with one of the clowns, which would have totally kicked butt, but alas, the circus fans of New York shall remain ignorant (read: were spared the sight) of my marvelous dancing prowess.

afterward, we ate dinner at O'Neals off 64th St., between Broadway and Central Park West. the food and service were excellent (shout-out and major kudos to Curtis and Awilda — thank you!), and i had my second pansy wuss girly froo-froo drink of the trip: in true Sex and the City style, vagina still firmly in place, i downed a Cosmopolitan. vodka, Triple Sec, cranberry juice, and a fresh-squeezed lime. tasty with a capital TASTY.

NYC day two — um, did you check the website, this isn't the cab you're looking for, dear GOD stop texting

2008-12-05T04:42:00.000-05:00

Heather and i were on our own in the Big City today, which, despite having vacationed in some of the busiest tourist cities in the world, still made me a bit nervous starting out. we had planned on hitting Brooklyn in the morning for some shopping, checking out the Bridge, and lunching at a famous pizza pit-stop. we hopped the metro and set out for the Cog & Pearl, a small boutique that carries crafty collectibles, including tiny handmade birds made by a local artist named Ann Wood. Heather has been trying to get her hands on one for over a year, but they sell out on the lady's blog faster than Sam Jackson takes a paying gig. so it was Heather's hope that the store would have some since it's one of only two places in New York she sells her gear. on the walk out from the subway, we noticed that almost all the other shops in the area were closed. i started to worry, and the walk was a little farther than i thought, so the anxiety built and built until we arrived at around 10:45am to find that the store didn't open until noon. (crap.) Heather turned and asked me if i'd bothered to check the store hours before coming out. my resposne? a self-directed, expletive-rich tirade that scared every jogger, hobo, sidewalk vendor, street dancer, and pesky pigeon for blocks. ("well done, asshat" is the *extremely* truncated version.)

so we trudged back to the metro and rode to the edge of Brooklyn to get close to the Bridge and have an early lunch at Grimaldi's. after taking the super scenic route (translation: i got us lost), we wound up at the restaurant, where we had some good pizza and quite possibly the best canoli in the history of tube-shaped, cream-filled-and-chocolate-sprinkled confections. this would have been the highlight of the meal, except one of the waiters almost snapped when some rude woman came in with a large group and set about being a righteous PITA. he made some classic Italian hand gestures (no, not that one) and bitched extensively about her, moving all around the restaurant, before finally winding up near our table and saying to us in an aside, "some people with the attitude, no?" (whatever you say, Giuseppe.)

we left Grimaldi's and tried to walk down the street to get down next to the Bridge, but a film crew was set up for a new show called The Unusuals, and they made us cross the street. i didn't see any of the cast, nor did i think to ask the person policing foot traffic around the scene who's in it or what it's about. we did get some good pictures, though.

after lunch, it was time to head way back to Cog & Pearl and resume Heather's birdhunt. Grimaldi's, however, was a good schlep from the subway, plus we were still aiming to stick to the day's itenerary even though i had boned it by not checking C&P's hours. so i hailed a cab a block from the pizzeria, got in and gave the cabbie the store's address of 190 5th Ave. he asked me, "what's the cross?" and of course, i had no effing idea. i tried to remember a streetname we'd crossed and failed spectacularly. then the dude told us to FIND ANOTHER CAB AND PROCEEDED TO KICK US OUT. unfortunately, he didn't scream at us or unleash a string of profanity stronger than the acid in the Joker's squirting lapel flower. but still. so we somberly hoofed it back to the Metro and made it to the store, where (mercifully) Heather scored her much-sought-after bird, a teeny thing in a scarf and an acorn hat. his name is Tim. (cue the hallelujah music)

i had intended for us to do the Museum of National History, but though my brilliant combination of clusterscrews, we had to skip it. the time had simply bled away, not to mention all the walking wore us out, and we had a 6:30pm dinner reservation before our date on Broadway with The 39 Steps, so we were forced to postpone.

we ate dinner at Sardi's where the food was good, not great, but the atmosphere was excellent and the view out onto Times Square was sweet. they pack you in pretty tight, and we sat next to a young couple from California on their honeymoon, and an old couple who could not have looked more miserable. the wife ignored her husband in favor of her cell phone, sending text message after text message throughout the duration of their meal. and even when she wasn't actively constructing an electronic missive, she would leave her phone flipped open on the table, i'm assuming to save the tremendous energy and effort it would have cost her to re-open it before sending yet another message. at one point the woman went to the bathroom — of course taking her cell along — and their dessert came shortly after she left. the poor guy sat there, fuming, and ate his entire dessert, while his wife's rotted on the table with her nowhere to be found. he even got up to go look for her, to no avail. she *finally* came back, no joke, almost 20 minutes later, not bothering to hide her lit-up phone that she'd obviously been on the entire time.

after dinner, it was time for The 39 Steps at the Cort Theatre. the play is an adaptation of an Alfred Hitchcock film of the same name, but more comedic in tone, and they make a number of funny (and occasionally corny) references to other Hitchcock films throughout, as well as stealing some of the accompanying music. our tickets were waiting for us at will-call, and when i went to the box office to collect them, the ticker seller said, "Ah. Mr. Curtis. we've taken the liberty of upgrading your seats. enjoy the show." our original seats were going to be good, right orchestra section, six rows from the stage, but our new seats were in center orchestra, five rows from the stage. translation? SWEET. the acting and the physcial comedy were excellent, and it was a fun show, not to mention a great finale to our first full day in Gotham.

NYC day one— flight of the jerkwads, how does this camera work, playtex & potent potables

2008-12-04T04:01:00.000-05:00

Heather and i came up to New York for an early Christmas vacation through next Monday. my old friend Tiffany was absurdly kind and generous enough not only to let me sully her fantastic 17th floor Manhattan apartment with my lowly down-south presence (Heather, of course, was unequivocably welcome), but also agreed to show us around and make sure Heather would get to do a little shopping in addition to me dragging her to all the touristy stuff.

Delta flight #910 saw us out of Atlanta with some choice company on board. there were three guys in the row in front of us, and each one of them was a flaming jackass. the guy in the window seat bitched when the flight attendant came around handing everyone their coats back because they wanted to make sure people could fit their luggage in the overheads first, and then he bitched when they told people to turn off their cellphones. the guy in the middle seat was a total pretty boy tool, and he threw a massive hissy fit about having to hold his coat when it got handed back to him. then he freaked out when he thought someone had put something top of his bag. he repeatedly stated that NOTHING could go on top of his bag. LOUDLY. then there was the dickweed in the aisle seat, who basically had the same reaction to the coat-and-cellphone business as Mr. Window Seat, but whereas Mr. Window Seat was merely texting/emailing/surfing on his Blackberry, Mr. Aisle Seat was actually talking on his phone, and when the lady told him he had to hang up, he totally ignored her. of course, this pissed her off and she immediately went and grabbed who i assume was the head flight attendant, and he proceeded to GIVE HER THE FINGER while her back was turned. classy. and hilarious. then there was this guy behind us, the front-runner for Worst Dad in the Universe. his kid kept trying to play with him while he was reading something (presumably for work), and the guy kept shouting at his kid, "STOP TOUCHING MY THINGS!" and then he took aim at his wife, saying, "KEEP HIM OFF ME!" while she sat looking mortified to the Nth degree.

after landing at LaGuardia, we went to catch a cab. the line of people at the taxi stand was probably 50-something deep, and this guy came up to us and asked if we needed a taxi. ("no, we often stand in contemplation of the taxi stand line when we have no actual need for transportation via taxi cab.") he said it would be a 30 minute wait for a cab, then said we should let him take us and asked where we were going. i told him Manhattan, and he quoted us $45 ... if we shared with someone else. this sounded dubious at best, but the line was long, and so i agreed. we crossed the street to an awning as directed, and i got somewhat alarmed when i noticed no one else was over there. Tiffany had told us the cab ride would run in the neighborhood of $25 with good traffic, so after standing there for a minute feeling absolutely retarded, we crossed back over and got in line to wait in the so-called 30-minute-long taxi stand line. naturally, the same guy saw us get in line and made some comment in a language i couldn't understand (i'm fairly certain he wasn't commenting on how much he liked my jacket or how pretty Heather's pregnant belly is, though), then proceeded to hit up the other people in line. the most common reaction at hearing the $45 price tag and the "you'll be sharing" condition? GO FORNICATE WITH YOURSELF. so, i was excited over the knowledge that i just had rescued us from a near-disaster — and then my excitement got geeked even further when the our wait in the taxi line lasted maybe 10 minutes AND the cab we got in had a TV in the backseat that ran news clips and weather and even got ESPN! yep, i was feeling pretty damn cool ... that is, until we hit some wicked thick traffic on the bridge to Manhattan and the resulting delays wound up making the cab ride cost (you guessed it) ... $45. i wish i were kidding.

we took a City Lights tour that evening, in an open top double-decker bus. the weather was cold and the city was gorgeous. since i am a complete sucker for all things Christmas, i was completely stoked to see the city decorated, and it didn't disappoint. Tiffany was leagues better than the supplied tour guide, often beating her to the punch on her little city factoids and trivia. at one point during the tour, this girl sitting in front of us turned around and asked me, "could you take my picture, sir?" that kind of sucked, and when i went to snap her photo, i pushed the wrong button on her camera and accidentally turned it off. luckily i was able to turn it back on and get the shot she wanted, after which she promptly got up and moved to a different seat. far away from us. so not only am i old, i'm also an idiot.

afterwards we went to Cesca to thaw and have dinner, and i had my first pansy wuss girly froo-froo drink of the trip: a Venecian Pomegranitini. vodka, orange liqueur, pomegranate juice, with a zesty lemon twist. needless to say, despite making me grow a vagina, THIS WAS YUMMY.

I've never seen a man get picked up by his testicles before

2008-12-02T02:50:00.000-05:00

i'm in full-on Al Bundy mode after a heinous weekend of good food, some great (and some so-so) movies, Black Friday shopping, and Christmas decorating. the Thanksgiving trip to Sylva, NC was sweet — i didn't have to cook or clean up, the dogs behaved themselves for 95% of the time (most definitely a record), all of my fantasy guys who played during the holiday went off, and it was actually chilly, not the practically-shorts-weather 60-something-degrees we normally get on Thanksgiving in Atlanta, which is the meteorological equivalent of being the turd in the punchbowl. hope yours was as good as mine (or better).

we concluded Thanksgiving Movie Festival 2008 with a double-header of titanic proportions. first up was Home for the Holidays, a fairly under-the-radar piece that works on lots of different levels and is rather choice in a freeze-frame / time-capsule kind of way for its 1995 release year. you've got Holly Hunter still fairly fresh off her double Oscar glory, a nomination for The Firm and winning for The Piano. Robert Downey, Jr. has admitted to being higher than an NSA spy satellite during filming (on heroin no less), yet he delivers an outstanding performance which, given the circumstances, is nothing short of miraculous and demonstrates just how talented he really is. The rest of the cast is uniformly excellent, from always stellar Anne Bancroft to likeables Dylan McDermott and Claire Danes, as well as some actors who were made for their respective roles, like Charles Durning, Geraldine Chaplin, David Strathairn, and Cynthia Stevenson, not to mention making an utterly-strange-but-absolutely-perfect call on Steve Guttenberg (who's never been better, before or since). it's a going-home-for-Thanksgiving-dysfunctional-family yarn, and as such there's plenty of humor and drama and self-examination, but it all feels fresh and organic. Jodie Foster is behind the camera after her debut surprise helming Little Man Tate, and she has to get some credit for the great performances. oh, and the script is great (although it's obvious that Downey, Jr. does a huge amount of improvising). and major points to Foster and whoever edited this, pulling together such great stuff despite RDJ's constant (got any skag?) distraction. most highly recommended, even if your family is more vanilla than Carvel soft-serve ice cream.

and to polish things off, of course, was Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. you shouldn't need a plot recap, so i'm not even going to bother. (and even if you DO need one, tough cheese. just watch the damn movie. you don't need to know anything beforehand to watch a film this funny. you just don't.) i think John Candy is underappreciated; yes, he made some bad movies, but the guy had sneaky range and was great at selling gags and nobody did the loveable schmuck cornball better. which brings me to Steve Martin, aka the white Eddie Murphy. seriously. hilarious stand-up comic turned movie star? check. great SNL stint? check. OK, maybe his film career wasn't as blindingly ascendant as Murphy's, but he had a decade-plus run of hits ('79-'91) that were funny (Roxanne and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels rule) and/or made money (the two aren't synonymous), including some legitimate smashes like Parenthood and Father of the Bride. but saying he's lost his mojo is like saying that two-people nickname combos like Brangelina or TomKat or Speidi have gotten out of control. (absence of excrement, Mr. Holmes.) Bringin' Down the House? both Cheaper by the Dozens? the execrable Pink Panther remake (which is unbelievably getting a sequel)? all grevious scatalogical stains on his long filmography. but getting back to PT&A, i think you can argue it's Martin's best film, and it makes me pine for the rumored three-hour version that was John Hughes' first cut for the studio (yeah, it's probably bloated in a too-much-of-a-good-thing way, but still, as far as unreleased director's cuts go, for me it's probably tied with John Boorman's legendary nigh-on-four-hour version of Excalibur, which was apparently screened a time or two but cut for length and excessive violence, on my They Aren't Making the DVD So Don't Hold Your Breath list). i mean, watching Martin chafe at Candy's boorish and dimwitted demeanor, the back-and-forth zingers, his F-bomb tirade aimed at poor Edie "I like sniffing Whiteout" McClurg, his imitation of a Chatty Cathy doll, the list is endless. if you only watch one Thanksgiving movie during the holiday, that has to be it.

we also got out to the theaters a couple times. Four Christmases was not the train wreck i was expecting; it's still bad — Vince Vaughn looks like has a permanent hangover, and Reese Witherspoon just didn't seem to know what to do with herself, which is a little surprising since she's hilarious in Election — but there are still some funny gags. plus i'm a sucker for any Christmas movie, no matter how bad it looks on paper or how tenuous the holiday connection; i sat through Christmas with the Kranks and, thanks to a sappy ending, nearly talked myself into it before remembering that i'd just paid to watch Timothy Allen Dick "act" for 90 minutes and coming to my senses.

we also saw Twilight. i've taken some shots at the Twilight fanbase because, well, most of them deserve whatever they get. the whole creepy tweenage-mommy collective orgasm surrounding the books, and now the film and its stars, would be interesting if it weren't so ... pathetic. anyway, my wife has been lamenting for a while now that Jamie Bell was not cast as Edward, and i applaud her choice, though i didn't think Robert Pattinson was terrible. but he wasn't good, and it would have been much more interesting to have an actor with some real substance and ability in the role. it's clear the filmmakers were so desperate to capture the right look for Edward that they didn't care about much else, including said selected stud having any real chemistry with Kristin Stewart's Bella. although, to be fair, Stewart didn't give him much to work with. assessments of her performance are all over the map, ranging from great to wooden, and just about everything in between. she didn't seem wooden to me, merely bored, which, given how rabid the fan(girl)s are, is pretty insulting. the film also looks terribly cheap, with a lot of made-for-TV stuff looking as good or better. i heard the film was inexpensive to make, but then i learned it actually cost $35 million, and was flabergasted. i hope some of the actors and/or crew got rich, because if not, the production company got ripped off by somebody (perhaps multiple somebodies. or maybe they just had the best craft services. EVER.). despite all this, i was never truly bored with the flick, but it never gets engaging beyond one or two fun moments, either. i will say that the cinematography is great; they should keep the same look for the already-green-lit sequel, but find a real FX company to handle the effects shots.

Never hide your stash under your bed

2008-11-26T01:58:00.000-05:00

Heather had a follow-up ultrasound to our big appointment back on Halloween (which already feels like it happened last year), when Ollie was being (IMPISH!) somewhat uncooperative and they were unable to take all the necessary measurements. this time they finished up and everything checked out normal and all's well. the tiny Jedi now weighing in at a staggering one pound. he also was positioned face-down for a lot of the ultrasound. i'm going to interpret that as him attempting to moon the ultrasound tech, who wasn't nearly as cool as the lady last time who called me "The Funny Guy."

we moved the twin bed out of the room that will become the nursery to make room for the new furniture, and it was a bit of an adventure. we had the bed up on risers, and underneath was an absolute cornucopia of accumulated crapola. luckily, it wasn't a repeat of the time my dad and uncle helped move me out of my grandmother's condo back when i was a freshman in college — when they went to dismantle my bed, they uncovered a small stack of magazines. magazines whose titles rhymed with stuff like Hugs, Rustler, Flub, and Tenthouse. my dad just looked at me and smiled, but my uncle proceeded to laugh his ass off for a good five minutes, all the while flipping through my tiny little collection. after he regained the ability to speak, he commented on my "great taste in filth." sure was awkward then, sure is funny now.

we're headed up to Sylva, NC tomorrow for Thanksgiving at Heather's folks' cabin. (Ahh, good ol' Pumpkin Town Road.) allow me to wish everyone a sublime, calorie-laden holiday loaded fit-to-bursting with turkey, sweet potato soufflé with EXTRA marshmallows, some type of savory bread side item (monkey bread FTW!), egg nog (spiked or unspiked — if you don't like it, fine, more for me), football games (and all of their fantasy league ramifications), Mountain Dew, great movies (there will be another Thanksgiving Movie Festival entry over the weekend), Black Friday shopping, not to mention all the joy and excitement and memory lane excursions that (hopefully) accompany spending time with your family and friends.

Nothing burps better than bacon

2008-11-25T00:45:00.000-05:00

we watched a couple Thanksgiving movies this weekend. first was Pieces of April, a teeny indy flick from 2003 with Katie Holmes (back when she was still an up-and-comer and not just The Mom of Suri), Oliver Platt (alas, he doesn't crown anyone), Derek Luke, and Patricia Clarkson. story revolves around Holmes' black sheep daughter having her entire family over for Thanksgiving dinner, and her family's reluctance to actually accept her invite and go. Holmes has an odd filmography; she showed flashes that she had a nice career run in her — she's good here, she's nasty playing against type in The Gift, she is excellent in Thank You For Smoking, and both Go and The Wonder Boys are interesting, but then she shows up in dreck like First Daughter, Abandon, and Mad Money. very strange. at a breezy 80 minutes, PoA is funny, sincere, and emotional in all the right spots, and makes for a fine entry in what really is, aside from a few classics, a criminally undernourished genre.

after that we spun up Dutch, a lesser known effort from that fabulous fountain of fun, John Hughes. billed as "Home Alone with Bart Simpson" by some schlong desperate to see his name in print on a DVD cover, the film actually shares much more in common with The Breakfast Club and Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (which is the real Hughes Thanksgiving classic), although pieces of the slapstick are reminiscent of his unadulterated Christmas masterpiece (yes, i just called Home Alone an unadulterated masterpiece. and you wonder why MRR is dead). i wasn't really a fan of Married with Children, but Ed O'Neal is pretty hilarious here as titular Dutch Dooley, who's kind of a poor man's man's man (yes, you read that correctly) who agrees to pick up his well-to-do girlfriend's PITA (pain in the ass for those scoring at home) prep school kid and drive him home for Thanksgiving. JoBeth Williams plays the girlfriend/mom; i know a lot of guys my age have fond memories (read: fantasies) of Leia's steel bikini courtsey of kink-meister Jabba the Hutt, and i'm not saying i didn't, but Williams blow-drying then combing her hair, lying down to push herself back on the bed, and then ultimately flashing her panties in Poltergeist left an equally vivid and vibrant imprint on my developing 80s brain. (belated TMI alert. sorry.) young Ethan Embry (strangely billed as Ethan Randall) is the son Doyle in one of his first roles, and it's pretty easy to sympathize with Dutch wanting to beat the snot out of him for most of the film's run-time. speaking of Embry, have you seen him lately? he was so baby-faced and earnest and twiggy in Empire Records, That Thing You Do!, and Can't Hardly Wait, but now, he's losing his hair and gotten a little beefy — he looks a bit like a redneck wife-beating champion. other noteworthy cast members include Christopher McDonald, who doubled up on the dickhead—douche bag dad/husband roles in 1991 with this and Thelma and Louise, and Elizabeth Daily, aka Dottie from Pee-Wee's Big Adventure (she also sang at the school dance near the end of Better Off Dead).

i need to mention something about my cell phone / movie theater rant from a previous posting. in it, i refer to cell phones as the Instrument(s) of Satan. well, it just so happens i got a new cell this past Friday, and i made the HUGE mistake of telling my friend Don about it. ever since, he has dispensed with his usual pleasantries (that's a joke) and proceeded to give me GRIEF TO NO END about getting a new phone. "what the hell, man, you said you hated cell phones, why are you getting a new one, that's stupid, it doesn't make any sense, why would you get a new phone after calling them the Instrument of Satan!!" and on and on and so on (but usually with much more profanity). it is true, i'm no fan, but i feel like he missed the point. he latched onto (in true pit bull fashion) the "cell phone = bad" portion, which was the smallest bit, and overlooked the (obvious, i thought) main theme of the rant. and besides, if i have to have one, i might as well have something decent. i wound up getting a Voyager from Verizon, and it's actually pretty cool. i need to figure out how to make my custom ringtones work on it, but until then, i'm using a pre-loaded one that sounds like a clip from a 70s porno. it's AWESOME. in fact, it's so AWESOME that i'm seriously considering shaving off my beard so i can rock the classic cheesy porn 'stache. then, whenever my phone rings, i can just look at whoever's nearby and smirk while waggling my eyebrows at them. you know the look, the one that says, "Ohhh, yeeaahhhh" just like the classic Yello song. maybe i should carry around one of those insulated pizza delivery bags, or wear a repairman's work belt, the kind with all the loops and pouches for tools and what-not. (ohhhhhhhhhhh, yeeeaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh. doo-boum-boum. chick ... chicka-chickAHHH!)

"Hello, my name is justin, we're at 21 weeks, and i'm excited our son previously sported a horn and is already using the Force..."

2008-11-22T02:40:00.000-05:00

Heather and i attended another baby seminar on Wednesday, this time at Gwinnett Medical's Women's Pavillion. after an unsettling first few minutes during which the lady running things made everyone attending introduce themselves and talk a little bit about their due dates, how far along they are, their excitements, etc. (public speaking, Heather's favorite!), it turned into a two-hour-plus common sense session for the most part, with a few interesting nuggets sprinkled in. the best bit was a National Geographic video on what babies experience inside the womb, complete with 4D ultrasound footage, as well as some CGI recreations, but unfortunately she cut the DVD off in what felt like the middle of the program. (WTF.) she did dispense some sage advice about not smoking or drinking alcohol during pregnancy (meaning Heather and i are going to have to knock it off with the Denis Leary and Dean Martin impressions), and she talked about diet, chiefly the importance of calcium and protein, the former of which the baby, if not getting enough in her diet, will simply STEAL from the mother like some gestational bone marrow vampire, leaving mommy to deal with osteoperosis down the road (thanks kiddo!). (note to Heather: drink some milk. like, NOW.) the audience was a curious cross-section — some normal folks, some white trash folks, some tardy folks, some i-really-don't-wanna-be-here-but-my-mom-dragged-my-no-i-don't-know-who-my-baby-daddy-is-butt-anyway folks, some annoying folks (including a Sandra Oh lookalike who, obviously having been told as much, was clearly trying to emulate her Ghey's Anatomy character's snarky personality, which made her even more annoying than Oh herself, which i didn't think was possible), and one alarmingly young couple who looked like they'd come fresh from their respective middle school cheerleading practice and drama class rehersal. she was about 4'5", clocking in at maybe 73 lbs, and looked all of 14, and her dude wasn't much older, and while thoroughly frightening, at least they showed up and paid attention ... until they snuck out at around the hour mark, never to return (my money's on them absconding to make an early sneak screening of Twilight).

couple other tidbits from this week:

Fox may or may not be already trying to reboot the X-Men film franchise. which was inevitable, given the age/level of fame/expense of some of the talent involved, but after the underwhelming response to X3 (which i didn't think was that bad, i was prepared for the worst when Fox replaced Bryan Singer, who made the worst choice of career to jump ship and channel Richard Donner for his Superman flick, with über-knob Brett Ratner), i guess they decided to do it sooner as opposed to later. here's where the problem comes in — they want Josh Schwartz, creator of (crap like) Gossip Girl and The O.C., to write AND direct. thankfully he turned down the directorial duties, but he's onboard as far as scripting goes, which isn't exactly making me go all priapistic. the flick is rumored to center around the younger X-Men like Angel, Colossus, Rogue, Iceman, Jubilee, and Shadowcat, i.e., the ripe-with-teen-angst set that is Schwartz's supposed forte. what is unclear is whether the story will be a continuation of what we've seen of these characters in the three existing X-Men films, but with them as the focal point, or a total relaunch, with cameos from younger (and different) versions of the X-heavy hitters like Storm and Cyclops, etc. regardless, as much as i enjoyed 90210 when i was in college (and beyond, i have no shame admitting), that's not exactly the milieu i want for my next X-Film. (although, the idea of Kristen Bell continuing her voiceover work is somewhat intriguing; instead of an "XOXO ... Gossip Girl" sign-off, maybe we could get a "Phase-shifting my way into your heart ... Shadowcat," or "Touching myself since nobody else can ... Rogue." the boys could even get in on the act with "Frozen with desire for you ... Iceman," or "You make me harder than steel ... Colossus." the possibilities are endless!)

Steven Spielberg and Will Smith are finally going to work together, but their choice of project is already fanning the flames of fanboy fury — they're set to remake Oldboy, the Korean masterwork by Chan-woo Park that pretty much blew my mind. it's a revenge story, with the main character being imprisoned for 15 years without being told why or by whom, and then one day he's released, again, with no explanation, and he's given five days to uncover said why and who. if you haven't seen it, i highly recommend it, but a strong stomach is definitely required. and that's where the geek fear comes into play — everyone is petrified that Spielberg and Smith will neuter the story's more graphic elements (which of course i won't spoil, but if you go poking around online, you'll find that not everyone is as circumspect). well, a day after the announcement, word has already hit that they've covered their proverbial bases; Oldboy was originally a comic, and the film adaptation apparently shares the core idea but is heavily modified, and Smith and Spielberg have said they're taking on the comic, not the movie. as far as them jacking up the story, i can appreciate the concern, but not perhaps the extent to which some people are fuming. i think a lot of people underestimate Smith to a degree with regards to pandering to the lowest common (audience) denominator, and i know they do with Spielberg. i wasn't a huge fan, but Hancock was a fairly big risk for Big Willy as far as his box office appeal; you could argue I Am Legend was as well. both are a far cry from his Independence Day-Men in Black "All I have to say is 'Aww, hell NAH!" to rule on July 4th" pedigree a lot of people seem stuck on. and as for Spielberg, ever heard of Munich? Schindler's List? A.I. (well, the first two hours at least)? all three are unfiltered, unapologetically adult efforts (am i really having to tell you this??) — it's even evident in pieces of War of the Worlds. in other words, he's certainly capable of delivering the kind of content fans of the film are expecting. whether or not they actually get it, of course, is the ultimate question...

If you open that thing again, not only will I kill you, I'll yell at you and embarrass you in front of your date before I do it

2008-11-18T02:10:00.000-05:00

Quantum of Solace is taking a beating in the reviews department. lots of folks are dissing the story, with stuff ranging from "nonsensical" all the way to "what story?" i alluded to this before, but allow me to make plain the necessity of rewatching Casino Royale before you go see Quantum — they are essentially two havles of a single story (although they might be two-thirds, i'm hearing the next Bond will pick up where QofS ends). i'm kind of torn; part of me wants to applaud the filmmakers for making no apologies about not recapping events and expecting you to know all the players from CR. but at the same time, given the somewhat complex plot, it's pretty much a dick move and i can understand people getting lost and annoyed and subsequently taking it out on the picture. but it's got some great action, and Daniel Craig is still on fire as Bond, so i guess i'm not totally understanding all the hate. bottom-lining it, i don't see how you don't enjoy Quantum if you liked Casino Royale AND you watched CR immediatlely prior to hitting up QofS. i do want to warn you though — there were a *staggering* number of trailers attached to our copy of Quantum. i closed-my-eyes-plugged-my-ears-and-hummed-my-way through previews for Valkyrie, Yes Man, Fast and Furious (well, that one i watched, but because the only way i could have less interest in that flick is if they brought in Keanu (who probably should sue Paul Walker for copyright infringment, since his role in the original was a straight rip-off of Agent Johnny "100%" Utah from Point Break)), The Day the Earth Stood Still (speaking of Canoe), Seven Pounds, and the new Star Trek reboot ... and i even think i'm forgetting one. in a word: OBSCENE. we could have been 20 minutes late to the show and not missed a thing.

(another rant: when you go to the movies, for the love of all things pre-Prequel Star Wars, stop opening your EFFING cell phones. i know you can't bring yourself to turn it off, because that would cause your life as you know it to stop instantaneously and every molecule in your body would explode at the speed of light, but at the very least silence your Instrument of Satan and leave the cursed thing closed. there was some schlong sitting near the front of the theater when we saw QofS who kept opening his phone to check his text messages and/or send some, and the sudden brightness of his screen kept distracting me from the film. if you can't go two hours without checking your phone, you are a self-centered jackass who needs to learn some basic life concepts like "CONSIDERATION FOR THOSE AROUND YOU" and "YOU'RE NOT THE ONLY PERSON ON THE PLANET" and "STOP BEING A DOUCHE." stay at home to watch your movies! (or at the very least, stay away from Discover Mills, The Colonial, or basically any other Atlanta-area theater where i might conceivably go to watch a flick.) now, for the parents leaving their kids with babysitters to have a date night at the movies who want to shoot me right now, just relax — if you're worried your kid is going to inhale his legos or nuke herself in the microwave, feel free to put your phone on vibrate, but when you get the call that your child has consumed nine Red Bulls in nine minutes and is now vibrating like Alex Ross' rendition of The Flash, GET UP AND LEAVE THE THEATER *BEFORE* you answer it, much less talk on it. this is just common sense people — please act like you have half a brain and marginally give a crap about your fellow man. it's not much to ask, really.)

well, just like that, the Hawks' early bubble of euphoria has been unceremoniously pricked. losers of three in a row, their early season penurious defense has abandoned them, having surrendered over 100 points (WELL over in some cases) in all three defeats. alas!

I had beans & broccoli for dinner and I washed 'em down with some crab cakes

2008-11-14T02:19:00.000-05:00

Heather and i went to a baby seminar at Babies R Us the other night entitled "Soothing Your Baby." they showed a short video that included tips on deciphering your baby's different cries, keeping a log of what calms him down, how to stick a thermometer up his anus, and so on. then they proceeded to try and sell us every single product on display in the presentation — i was tempted to ask how much they wanted for the TV just to see what the lady running the seminar would say. it was informative, though, and i learned a lot, but the best part was at least 50% of the content centered around babies having gas and how to deal with it (unfortunately for newborns, gas can be extremely painful, which really takes all the fun out of having it in the first place). one trick they showed was to lie your baby down and then move his legs in a bicycling motion to alleviate the pressure. cool, right? well i was digging it until i realized there was no accompanying audio of the baby farting up a storm as the mom cycled his fat little pins. i mean, come on — throw the dads a bone!

we also ordered some Wendy Bellissimo nursery furniture from Babies R Us and it showed up on Wednesday. i've heard all the nightmares about crib construction, but my fears got ratcheted into the stratosphere when i saw the box — it's bigger than me and weighs 231 pounds. (in fact, i channeled Woody Harrelson after lifiting it — "hunnh! i think i tore my sack!!")

in mildy Thanksgiving Movie-related news, we revisited Casino Royale tonight in preperation for hitting up a Quantum of Solace (can we get a ruling on the quantum? are we getting a pinch? a smidgen perhaps? how about a double-buttload?) at AMCinema this Saturday. there's no question that Daniel Craig rules as Bond (although i still have a slight mental itch over what a Clive Owen Bond might have been like, just as i still occasionaly wonder what David Fincher would have done with Spider-Man) — he snatched the role from Pierce Brosnan like a pit bull playing tug-of-war with a tea cup poodle, after which he proceeded to pick the poodle up and maul it beyond recognition and the gore is still dripping down his chin from between his teeth. Roger Moore has been in the press lately denouncing the "new more violent" Bond, which is disappointing but not unexpected. although Casino Royale is knocking on the door, my favorite Bond flick is still For Your Eyes Only, still one of the more ruthless 007 adventures, and Moore HATED what the filmmakers did with Bond in that film. (i know it was blasphemy for a long time to prefer anyone other than Sean Connery, but i grew up with Moore as 007 and still think of him first whenever i consider the character.) thankfully Craig is too good an actor to ever start visible phoning it in like Moore and Brosnan did at the end of their runs.

need to give a brief "holla!" to my Atlanta Hawks (yes, they're mine, always have been, even through the wicked lean years, i'm no bandwagon jumper) for starting the season 6-1 and getting more ink from a loss than a lot of teams get for a win. although, this "new" rivarly (more like renewed) with the Celtics doesn't feel the same without 'Nique and Bird. it just doesn't have the same edge, the same intensity. back in the day, i couldn't stand Boston. i *hated* Larry Bird. (is hate too strong a word? i think not.) i loathed him with a flaming purple passion. from his unlimited range to his stupid dopey accent to his whispy pubestache. he stabbed Atlanta's best shot at reaching the NBA Finals during my childhood right through the heart like a cold-blooded assassin, and i rightfully despised him for it. but rivalries like that have been dead in the NBA for almost two decades. don't believe me? go to a game, or watch one on NBA TV. most of the players like each other. they hang out during the offseason, share the same trainers, shoot commercials together. hell, they hug before AND after games! you didn't have any of that namby-pamby crap back in the '80s, man. there was respect, sure, but once the ball went up for tip-off, it was ON. and afterward, there wasn't any damn hugging. there were stare-downs and trash-talk, including expletive-filled how'd-ya-like-thats and you-don't-want-none-of-mes and yo-mammas. i really hope Atlanta can keep their confidence high until Josh Smith comes back. team defense has been the catalyst for their fast start — they have games where they're not terribly efficient on offense, but they are limiting opponents to one possession and forcing them to take tough shots. if they stick to that formula, not only should they have a good year, but they won't be a streaky team, and stiff defense is how you win on the road in the NBA. (OK, that wasn't very brief. and if you're surprised, well, you're an idiot.)

Yes, they are upon us

2008-11-12T01:56:00.000-05:00

Thanksgiving is two weeks from Thursday — did anyone else just drop an S-bomb in their shorts? i say this every year, and every year i fail fantastically in my attempts to stave it off: the holidays always seem to sneak up on me. which really should be impossible, given the inundation of Christmas-tization that happens earlier and earlier each year in just about every retail location you can imagine (granted it's somewhat muted this year given the global economic meltdown we're sitting fat in the middle of, but we still saw trees and garland up at the Mall of Georgia Macy's well before Halloween). but that's getting ahead of myself — i want to stick with Turkey Day for the moment. just as we, the Curtii, have the Halloween Movie Festival, we likewise have the Thanksgiving Movie Festival, and in the next two weeks i'll regale (read: annoy) you with recaps of all the Thanksgiving-themed flicks we watch. (i know, i know — try and contain yourselves.) While not as high profile as Halloween or Christmas movies, there are several gems out there, but if i reel them off now, you'll never come back to check out the reviews. ("Be patient, Luke. Stay and watch over the droids.")

maybe my Ralph Macchio birthday reference caused a Butterfly Effect. in somehwat disturbing news, Will Smith wants to remake the Karate Kid with his own kid Jaden in the titular role (although redubbed The Kung Fu Kid). setting aside the sacrilege of needlessly remaking the 1984 classic, let's just consider the logisticis for a moment, shall we? i believe Jaden Smith is 10 years old, but he looks all of eight. filming is scheduled to take place sometime in early 2009, meaning he might be 11 and still quite possibly not looking his age. but even if he does, or even supposing he hits a growth spurt between now and then and can pull off 12, that still means tweaking the storyline considerably, right? Macchio's Daniel-san was 15-16 and in high school, with all the inherent teen angst problems firmly in evidence. i know schools are a lot scarier these days, but i really don't think 11 and 12 years olds go around in evil-dojo-karate-trained packs repeatedly terrorizing and beating the tar out of their peers (one of the main stumbling blocks, i would bet, that's kept an adaptation of Ender's Game from getting off the ground for two decades), but even if they do, incorporating that into the story won't exactly thrill the parental units getting dragged to see a remake of a film they probably liked when they were younger, which will only make them feel older and piss them off to the point where they're dying to unleash the Crane Technique on someone. of course, the irony of Jaden being too young is hilarious when you consider that Macchio was 22 playing a 15-year-old back in 1983 when they shot the original. (random Karate Kid trivia: Elisabeth Shue took time off from Harvard to make this, her first movie.)

It all goes back to something my grandmother told me ...

2008-11-07T21:40:00.000-05:00

we got some good test results back yesterday — Heather laid the smack down on her gestational diabetes test, so that's one less thing for us to worry about. unfortunately, she didn't trash talk before or after the fact, and while that was somehwat disappointing, i actually got her to give me a real high-five in recognition of her triumph, which practically made up for it (Heather, bless her, is the absolute WORST high-fiver ever to come down the high-fivin' highway. whenever i put my hand up to her for some celebratory hand-slappery, if she deems the subject of my excitement to be unworthy — which happens 99.9999% of the time of course, as it usually coincides with me dropping a particularly crude zinger or getting three straight crits on some Horde asshat in PvP — she'll just kind of fling the back of her hand at mine, completely unconcerned, not to mention uncaring, if she even makes contact or not. WEAK.)

(trust me: as bad as it sounds on paper, it's even worse live.)

we went to see a sneak of Role Models last night. everyone knows how anti-spoiler i am, so i don't want to say anything other than it's pretty crude and coarse and irreverant, which is to say i really enjoyed it. it's been a good year as far as comedies go — just put on your reading glasses and peruse this list: Pineapple Express, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, Run Fatboy Run, Smart People (really underrated and hilarious), Sex & the City, Get Smart, Tropic Thunder (the King of '08 if you ask me), How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, Bangkok Dangerous (just seeing if you're paying attention). the only thing Role Models is (tragically) missing is a fart joke. And if you know your Kevin Smith (and shame on you if you don't), then you know that fart jokes are half the equation when it comes to "the big bucks." (as for the other half, well, Role Models has it covered.)

oh yeah — i had my first egg nog chai latte of the season this morning. if you've never tried this celestial concoction of confectionery, take my word for it and give one a whirl. just might be the best 1000 calories you ever tasted.

A sure-fire sign of the impending apocalypse

2008-11-06T15:53:00.000-05:00

the Atlanta Hawks are now 3-0 after beating the New Orleans Hornets, a trendy pick to make the NBA Finals this year, on their home court last night. several years ago, i made a couple of ill-fated attempts at keeping a running Hawks diary on MyReelReview. one season i actually did a handful of games before petering out — it was a fun experiment but watching the games and writing them up just took too long — and the second season i didn't make it out of the preseason (although i did write up all of my fantasy basketball drafts that year). but both years i tried to keep the diary, the Hawks blew crap. it's been a dark decade-plus for Hawks fans, so much so that we barely have a collective pulse — that was until it got a massive defibrillator-delivered shock during the playoffs last year when we forced a Game 7 with the eventual NBA champs, the Boston Celtics (which was all well and good, but it really wasn't THAT close, we got blown out in all four loses in Boston). i guess what i'm saying is, if the Hawks continue to buck convention and keep winning despite a bench that has the tensile strength of wet tissue paper, you might be hearing more about them in this space than you'll probably care to. (Yo Z — let's go to a game!)

Somebody tape an "X" on the window

2008-11-06T11:16:00.000-05:00

Agent Mulder, please say hello to our ALIEN BABY. ("That's why we like you, Mulder. Your ideas are weirder than ours.")

Halloween ultrasound pics

2008-11-06T02:22:00.000-05:00

OK, so, with the "leg-leg-bottom" labels providing the orientation on the last picture, do we REALLY need the >>>>> indicator pointing at his package? at one point i asked the ultrasound tech if she ever felt like mixing things up and replacing "bottom" with stuff like "keister" or "can" or "turd cutter." (she looked at me with exactly the same face a lot of you are currently making at your monitors.) what i should have asked was how often she had to resist the urge to label a butt as "Keanu," since that's basically how i (and everyone else should) regard him.

Mental blowback on election day

2008-11-05T01:20:00.000-05:00

Heather scanned in the ultrasound pics from Friday's appointment, but i haven't sliced-and-diced them for mass consumption yet, so i thought i would just drop the few non-election related items skittering across my fried-from-the-voting-process-and-all-the-political-coverage brain:

if you have a custom ringtone on your cell phone, you're pretty much inviting unreserved ridicule from your friends and complete strangers alike. i know i get crap everytime my phone spits out my homemade snippets of The Imperial March or the theme from Raiders of the Lost Ark, but the worst offenders are the people who load their kid's voice and use that as their ringer. ever heard anyone using one of these? a chick behind me in line to vote this morning had one, and it was beyond horrific — it was her daughter SCREAMING at (what i hope is) the top of her lungs, "MOM!! YOUR PHONE IS RINGING!! MAAAAAAHHHHHHM!!" i was reading a book in line, and i swear i read the same paragraph ten times while some idiot blew up her phone for five straight minutes. and for some reason she never got embarrassed, although her friend eventually elbowed her (but not nearly hard enough) and she finally set it to vibrate. CRIPE.

the Hawks are off to a sizzling (for them) 2-0 start to begin the young NBA season. but here's the pathetic bit: it's their best start to a season since — are you ready for this? — 1999. not that we really needed any MORE evidence as to why Atlanta is a pitiful excuse for an NBA town. Marvin Williams over Chris Paul? hello? are you EFFING kidding me?? i don't think i'll ever get over the fact that even though Paul OPENLY TALKED ABOUT WANTING TO PLAY IN ATLANTA, and despite the fact that WE NEEDED A POINT GUARD MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE, THE HAWKS STILL DIDN'T DRAFT HIM!!! even though passing over Paul for anyone itself was inexcusable, at the very *least* they could have drafted Deron Williams (another stellar point guard they foolishly pooh-poohed) or Andrew Bynum, both vastly superior players to Marvin, who wasn't even the best player ON HIS OWN TEAM AT UNC THAT YEAR. (i really should be past all this. i will now eat my keyboard.)

it's Ralph Macchio's birthday today. dude is 47. (if an expletive just escaped your lips, you're either a child of the 80s, or you have absolutely no clue who the hell Ralph Macchio is.) to celebrate, i offer up the following: "No, the problem is I'm getting my ass kicked every other day, THAT'S the problem."

even though Heroes fans already know trouble is definitely brewing for the series (well, you know if you're up-to-date with this season), word now is circulating that two co-exec producers, Jeph Loeb and Jesse Alexander, have been fired from the show. Loeb is a comics industry vet (and some would say institution, but i tend to think he's rather hit-or-miss), while Alexander worked on both Lost and Alias. is series creator Tim Kring power tripping? obviously someone is to blame for the weaksauce start to season three and the corresponding ratings slippage, but it's tough to know who to blame without getting some realy dirt from the inside. maybe Loeb or Alexander will pop off to some Hollywood blogger in the next few days and we'll get the juice as to who's really screwing things up over there. it would make a lot of sense to find out that Kring is force-feeding crappy ideas from the top down; he was the one who got all pissy during season one when people accused him of ripping off Watchmen. and during season two when people accused him of ripping off the Legacy Virus storyline from X-Men. (sniff a trend here?)

and finally, i can't stand Tim Allen. he's a cataclysmically unfunny bunghole. today i found out that his real name is Timothy Allen Dick. that couldn't be more appropriate even if it were a book entitled The Most Appropriate Thing the Universe Has Ever Seen. (and yes, it made my day.)