Top 100 Movie List weirdness

Next up is the top 40 movies, the real tough portion of the list. There have been a few times when I’ve re-looked at the list from 41 to 100 and wondered why a specific movie was so low on the list. I stand by where any movie stands but there are choices at first glance look off. The top 40 is even worse, there are only a few in the top 10 that I know belong in a specific spot but almost everything else is tough choice. If you would have asked me a month ago about a specific movie in my top 40, about 35 of the 40 I would have said “yeah that would be in my top 10”. Obviously you can’t have 35 movies in your top 10 so the list ends up how it is. Before we get to the list I was bored and went over my list for some fun information.

I list the directors for each film but I should probably list the writers as well. A movie lives and dies with a good script and a good director. Writers just don’t get the fame, harder for me to remember them off hand.

72 –Directors I was able to pick without looking them up.

10 – Movies that have been director by someone named John (or Jonathon)

8 – Movies that have been directed by someone named Steve Spielberg.

11 - Movies made before the year I was born (1976).

0 - Movies made the year I was born.

24 - Movies made after the year the Little One was born (1999).

33 - Movies made between when I first started working at a movie theater (1993) and when I last worked at a movie theater (2000). I worked at a movie theater four different times, once in high school through some college, once full time as a manger for two years, one for two days as a manager trainee for a shitty theater, and once as a part time manager after the Little One was born. During that time I probably saw on average a movie every two weeks.

6 – Highest numbers of movies in a specific year, 1989 and 1999. I guess 2009 should be a good year for movies.

1 – Movies I’ve seen on a first date (not Pretty Bird).

1 – Movies when I decided I wanted to date Pretty Bird, she still does like Milk Duds.

3 – Movies I consider Pretty Bird and I to actually have been on a date.

25 – Movies that have made over 200 million dollars, the measure of a blockbuster, or so they say.

9 – Movies that have won the Academy Award for Best Picture, the measure of a good movie, or so they say.

78 – DVDs that we own.

Top Movie List 41-50

Trevor’s Top Movies 41-50

50. Toy Story 2 (1999, John Lasseter) – What a fun movie, in some ways even funnier than the first one. I am still pretty impressed that every single movie that Pixar has released with Disney I’ve enjoyed.

49. Jaws (1975, Steven Spielberg) – Where to begin with this movie. It was the first true summer movie and the first to make $200 million dollars, it has the scene that has been imitated by many a flick, the soundtrack is incredible, and you almost never see the star of the movie. Just brilliant.

48. The Goonies (1985, Richard Donner) – Hey you guys! What great family fun.

47. Bull Durham (1988, Ron Shelton) – My favorite baseball movie and for the record, candlesticks do not make a nice gift.

46. Big (1988, Penny Marshall) – The role that first showed Tom Hanks was actually an actor. So much of this movie is just great, what a good time. And honestly, who hasn’t wanted to do that in a limo or eat mini-corn that way?

45. The Sixth Sense (1999, M. Night Shamalyan) – I said before with Unbreakable that I figured this one out and I did but not much before it was revealed. Even with that this movie is incredible.

44. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982, Steven Spielberg) – My favorite part of this movie is the fact it is shot almost entirely from the perspective of someone four feet high. I’ve lost some of love of this movie over the years but I guess I’m not four feet high anymore.

43. Galaxy Quest (1999, Dean Parisot) – One of the absolute funniest movies I’ve ever seen. It isn’t universally funny like Big, you must like science fiction to get this movie but boy is this funny. “Whoever wrote this episode should just die!”

42. Reservoir Dogs (1992, Quentin Tarantino) – Two words for the idiot groups that want to blast Tarantino for being too violent, SUCK IT. I watch Rambo (who the President of the United States used in a speech as an example of an American tough guy, a hero if you will) and see someone who kills people and it is made out to be cool. I watch Reservoir Dogs and I want nothing to do with guns, Tim Roth’s character is in such pain for almost the entire movie.

41. The Shawshank Redemption (1994, Frank Darabont) – This movie you have to watch a few times to get how good it really is. Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins are very good, the script is awesome. Just a great movie.

Top Movie List 51-60

Trevor’s Top Movies 51-60

60. X-Men (2000, Bryan Singer) – This movie along with Blade showed Hollywood that you could make bigger budget, quality comic book movies and have the audience show up. Director Bryan Singer and scriptwriter Tony DeSanto along with an all star cast provided a great intro movie for X-Men and comic movies in general. I don’t enjoy it nearly as much as some other comic movies but it is still pretty good.

59. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkahan (2004, Alfonso Cuaron) – To say I’m not a huge Harry Potter fan would be an understatement. I do enjoy the movies and the novels but not to the levels I enjoy comics or movie franchises like Lord of the Rings or Star Wars. They are still very enjoyable and this is far and away the best one of the group, at least so far.

58. The Terminator (1984, James Cameron) – Very much an indy film, this is a great science fiction film that I still enjoy very much today.

57. The Sting (1973, George Roy Hill) – This should probably be much higher but for whatever reason it isn’t. You gotta rank movies, everything can’t be in the top 10. Still this movie is out of the world good.

56. Spaceballs (1987, Mel Brooks) – “I once saw a parody of Spaceballs, they called it Star Wars. I couldn’t believe it, they cast Harrison Ford in the Bill Pullman role”, thanks Space Ghost.

55. Pulp Fiction (1994, Quentin Tarantino) – Still don’t know what was in the case but I do know it was the best film release in 1994 and still Quentin’s best work.

54. Glory (1989, Edward Zwick) – Not that most guys would ever admit that they cry during a movie, this one still gets me chocked up at the end and I’ve seen it about 10 times.

53. Bowfinger (1999, Frank Oz) – What a great, underrated comedy. If you haven’t seen it do yourself a favor and watch it.

52. Top Gun (1986, Tony Scott) – Like everyone else the ages from 10 to 20 when this movie came out all I wanted to be was a fighter pilot.

51. Full Metal Jacket (1987, Stanley Kubrick) – It is like two movies in one. One of my stoner roommates would watch this over and over again.

Top Movie List 61-70

Trevor’s Top Movies 61-70

70. Batman (1989, Tim Burton) - I so wanted to stand in line for the midnight show but I wasn’t allowed. I ended up seeing this one two weeks after it was released, my parents didn’t want to wait in the long lines. It was great although upon reflection I don’t really love Tim Burton’s view on my favorite comic book universe now as much as I did in 1989.

69. Star Trek VI: the Undiscovered Country (1991, Nicholas Meyer) – This spot on the list probably should be reserved for Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure but that didn’t even make my list. Anyways, this is far and away my favorite Star Trek movie.

68. Apollo 13 (1995, Ron Howard) – Being from Florida the US Space Program is pretty important to me as I’ve referenced in previous blog entries. The cast is incredible and Ron Howard did a great job with this. Much like Cameron with Titanic it amazes me when a director can create drama for the audience when they already know the outcome.

67. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991, James Cameron) – He said he was going to be back and this one is a good bit of fun.

66. The Princess Bride (1987, Rob Reiner) – My college roommate forced me to watch this movie and like just about everyone else I really enjoyed it. Not sure why I didn’t watch it before then, I do know Pretty Bird will be upset it is this low on the list.

65. Grosse Pointe Blank (1997, George Armitage) – What a fun, quirky movie and a great soundtrack.

64. True Lies (1994, James Cameron) – Like I said I love James Cameron’s movies and Tom Arnold in this is a riot. Still waiting for a decent version on DVD because I love re-watching this movie.

63. A League of Their Own (1992, Penny Marshall) – I went to see this with my grandparents, both of who were huge baseball fans. All three of us really enjoyed it.

62. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962, Robert Mulligan) – I’m not going to use my feeble skills to describe this incredible movie. You’ve seen it and read the novel, you know how good both are.

61. Major League (1989, David Ward) – This used to be my favorite baseball movie until I watched Bull Durham a few more times. I will still watch this about every chance I get when it is on.

Top Movie List 71-80

Trevor’s Top 100 Movies 71-80

80. The Untouchables (1987, Brian De Palma) – “Mr. Ness, I do not approve of your methods” “Well you’re not from Chicago!” I say I’m not a Costner fan but man a bunch of his movies are on my list.

79. Superman Returns (2006, Bryan Singer) – Would probably make the list based on the teaser trailer alone.

78. Eternal Sunshine on the Spotless Mind (2004, Michel Gondry) – What a really interesting movie. Pretty Bird and I both think Jim Carrey deserves a lot more credit in dramatic roles.

77. Minority Report (2002, Steven Spielberg) – I still can’t believe I was surprised how good this movie was, it was a science fiction movie by Spielberg. Trust me, after seeing the whole list you’ll know how much I love both of those.

76. Red Dawn (1984, John Milius) – Man how dated this movie is but boy did me and my friends love it when I was a kid. Still something I will watch when I see it on one of Turner’s many stations. Plus the answer the trivia question what was the first PG-13 movie.

75. Usual Suspects (1995, Bryan Singer) – I didn’t figure this one out either, what a really good movie. I’m surprised also how much Bryan Singer is on this list as well.

74. Empire Records (1995, Allen Moyle) – Having worked retail, at a movie theater, and a fast food place, all full of slackers, this movie is as much a work place movie as Clerks or Office Space.

73. Die Hard (1988, John McTiernan) – This is our annual Christmas movie. Of all the 80’s action movies this one is the best.

72. GoldenEye (1995, Martin Campbell) – I do love Connery the best but Bond is all about tongue and cheek and they don’t get better than this one. This one they actually make fun of previous Bond movies, greatness.

71. 12 Angry Men (1957, Sidney Limut) – Simply one of the best movies I’ve ever seen.

Top Movie List 81-90

Trevor’s Top Movies 81-90

90. The Muppet Movie (1979, James Frawley) – One of my favorite movies as a kid, still one of my favorites now. I mean really, who doesn’t love Jim Henson’s Muppets?

89. Beauty and the Beast (1991, Gary Trousdale) – My favorite of the hand-drawn Disney cartoons and the only one to be nominated for Best Picture. It is also Pretty Bird and the little one’s favorite as well. I’ll watch this about once a month or so with the little one.

88. Star Trek: First Contact (1996, Jonathan Frakes) – The Next Generation is my favorite Trek and this is far and away their best movie.

87. True Romance (1993, Tony Scott) – This was actually the first Tarantino movie I watched and is probably my favorite. It is the one I probably will re-watch the most, I just think Quentin has some much better work out there that placed higher on the list.

86. V for Vendetta (2006, James McTeigue) – I love the update on Alan Moore’s work and I think Natalie Portman and Hugo Weaving were great.

85. Dead Poets Society (1989, Peter Weir) – Capre Diem. I took two years of latin in high school, my teacher would have us watch this at the beginning of every semester. He also had a coffee mug that said Capre Diem when it was empty (cold) and Seize the Day when it was filled (hot).

84. Field of Dreams (1989, Phil Alden Robinson) – It reminds me so much of how important baseball was to my grandfather. Not to mention I love baseball movies.

83. Office Space (1999, Mike Judge) – Probably should be higher there is just something about it that makes me feel it should be pretty low. Very quotable and definitely has aspects about office life that are correct.

82. Thunderball (1965, Terence Young) – I love James Bond, I think Sean Connery is the best Bond and it has a boat the splits in two and becomes faster!

81. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003, Gore Verbinski) – A great summer movie ride. I remember seeing the teaser poster and having Pretty Bird complain about a movie based on a ride at Disney. Now it is one of her favorite movies.

I'm finally joining the group

I finally decided to take the time and finish my Top 100 movie list. I was out of the office on due to some health issues two weeks ago and really bored so I started it then. It was much more difficult than I expect it to be or maybe not difficult but more time consuming. I started with a list of about 250 movies and to get down to 100 movies proved to be a bit time consuming.

This list isn’t solely based on how much I like a movie. I rated each movie on four criteria and then came up with an average score to help place the movies and eliminate the extra 150 movies. How much I liked the movie, obviously I like every movie on the list but I like Star Wars more than 12 Angry Men. How good I thought the movie was, Godfather is obviously a higher quality movie than Red Dawn. How important a movie was to me, this meant importance in a variety of ways, Die Hard and Love Actually are movies that Pretty Bird and I watch very often together so they are important that way. Fellowship of the Ring and Star Wars are indirectly or even directly responsible for the line of work I’m in. The last quality was how many times I could watch a movie. I love Schindler’s List, think it is very important, and one of the best movies ever made but it isn’t exactly something I would watch over and over again, at least not the level of Spielberg’s other 1993 masterpiece Jurassic Park.

I’m going to do this in ten parts with and then post the entire list to be referenced later on. I want to do this so I can write about the movies and waste more time on the blog, I’ve gotta blog more often and the easiest way to do that is to force yourself to blog. So now onto to the list, starting with the bottom 20.

Trevor’s Top 100 Movies - #91 - #100

100. Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith (2005, George Lucas) – This movie obviously rated very low on my quality list. It does finally have the Anakin vs. Obi Wan duel, provided other quality action sequences and is the little one’s favorite Star Wars movie.

99. Titanic (1997, James Cameron) – Sappy love story, huge hype, transparent ending, blah, blah. It was fun to open this movie at the theater I managed when it released, we sold it out for weeks. Pretty Bird would get bored and come up to see it and hang out while I was at work. I think it is one the most well done movies ever. I also heard it made just a little bit of money.

98. Transformers: The Movie (1986, Nelson Shin) – Next to the Star Wars Trilogy this used to be my favorite movie for the longest time. I can still watch it today.

97. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991, Kevin Reynolds) – This movie again just isn’t very good but for some reason I really enjoy it. My friends at the time and I really enjoyed it as well. Pretty Bird and I really enjoy it and love quoting it. “Why a spoon cousin…” “Because it’s dull you twit, It’ll hurt more!”

96. The Rock (1996, Michael Bay) – It really pains me to have a Michael Bay film on my list but this movie is mad fun. This was another movie we had a great time watching while I was working at a movie theater. The movie is even better if you look at it with Sean Connery’s perspective, what if James Bond was caught and imprisoned for 30 years?

95. Unbreakable (2001, M. Night Shyamalan) – Unlike The Sixth Sense which I figured out (only like 10 minutes before it was revealed) for some reason I didn’t figure this one out at all. It is also incredibly well done and I love superhero stories.

94. The Blues Brothers (1980, John Landis) – Man do I love this movie, great soundtrack, very quotable, good cast plus Carrie Fisher and Steven Spielberg as cameos, what more could you want.

93. Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993, Bruce Timm) – I love Batman and this is better than all but two of the live action movies plus based off probably my favorite TV show of all time.

92. Abyss (1989, James Cameron) – This is one of the first movies I can remember being surprised on how much I liked it compared to what I was expecting. My parents dragged me to the movie and I didn’t want to see it but I loved what I saw.

91. Spider-Man 2 (2004, Sam Raimi) – Probably better than the first Spider-Man but I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much. It feels more like a forced sequel than something I really enjoy watching. It is still a based on Spider-Man and well done so I still enjoy it.

Stay tuned to see the remaining 90 movies.

Man I hate teams from Ohio

Ben hasn't looked very good so far this year and boy do we have to fix special teams. Maybe the bye week will help them.

Reports of my demise were false

It has been a long two weeks. Two weeks ago I went to a great game with my mom up in Pittsburgh. It was a wonderful trip and good to spend time with mom. She has a few things on her plate and I feel pretty bad I’m not in a position to help her more. The last time she went through some of this we had a baby on the way, no money at all, I worked two jobs, and lived 45 minutes away. Now I’m four hours away which basically means I’m really too far way to help. I will still help where I can. I’ve tried to blog more often but the past two weeks were tough. Other than an ambiguous update on my mother here is what has been going on.

Steelers 28, Dolphins 17 – Like I mentioned above that game was incredible. We stayed at the Pittsburgh Hilton which is right on the apex of the three rivers. Basically it goes Hilton then Roberto Clemente park, then three rivers. We had a Hines Field view room which was great. I’m going to have to make it a habit of going to a game in Pittsburgh at least once a year, it is just a blast. You can just feel the emotion in the crowd and the games are a blast. It was also a great to be at the game where the fans welcomed their Super Bowl Champion team home. They haven’t played a real game since the Super Bowl and even then all of the playoffs were on the road. The championship banner, Jerome coming in on a bus, the pre-game show, everything was insane! They’re now 1-1 in games I’ve been to in Pittsburgh, winning is better than losing.

Diamond/Alliance Summit – This was a quick trip to Baltimore right after my trip to Pittsburgh. It was only a two day show but it was in Baltimore. I really like the inner harbor area of Baltimore, lots of great places to eat and what not. I won’t really talk about the show, work stuff is boring to talk about.

Mitral Valve Prolapse – I normally don’t talk about my health issues, in print or otherwise. I do know some of my friends know I have a heart condition and others don’t. I actually have an offshoot of Marphan’s Syndrome which is what causes almost all of my health issues. Since I don’t talk about them I don’t think I will now, you have google, look it up. Either way I also know that some friends and family know that I went to the hospital last week because of it. I’m only talking about it because I want everyone to know that I’m doing fine. I missed a few days of work, had some pain killers, rested a lot. I have multiple follow up tests because I’m starting to get up there in years and I’m not in great shape so they want to make sure nothing has really changed. I have intermittent condition which apparently is very rare so it takes more tests than normal to check on it.

Star Wars Legos 2 – OMG is this game made fun. I loved the first one and this one is even better so far. Oh wait, I started this wrong. I should ramble on about how much I dislike Star Wars and George Lucas, damn him, he ruined my childhood!!! Joss Whedon and Peter Jackson are gods, Lucas and Speilberg are hacks. Screw that, I love Star Wars, why let any crap like how some hippie in San Francisco wants to change the movies bother me. If it is good Star Wars stuff (there has been a lot recently, Clone Wars, Potato Heads, Legos, the SDCC exclusive figure) I will buy it and enjoy it. If it is crap I will leave it alone. The reason I didn’t buy the Star Wars DVDs recently release has nothing to do with me hating Lucas and his ploy to get more money, it had to do with a new format on the horizon. Blu Ray and/or HD-DVD will be the standard, at least for people who own a TV like I do, and I don’t want to buy archive stuff. New stuff I don’t mind buying on DVD because it is usually pretty cheap and I really enjoy it. I will buy TV shows because they aren’t set up for HD anyways and very cheap archive stuff. I’m not going to buy something at normal price that I plan on buying again on the new format. Very few things do I plan on buying again if I already own it anyways but Star Wars is obviously some of them. Anyways back to Star Wars Legos, it is great! A great waste of time.

Firefly/Serenity – I finally finished watching Firefly. I bought the DVDs over a year ago and tried to watch it a few times. The first few didn’t quite do it for me so it was hard to watch them or at least make time to watch them. I had quite a bit of time being at home for 5 days not allowed to do much, even drive so I watched them. I then was able to catch Serenity on HBO HD on Friday. I enjoyed the series and the movie I don’t quite get the dedication however. Well that isn’t true, I know exactly why the fans are so die-hard, I just don’t think it does it for me. Anything that is viewed as having been wronged by the ‘man’ or anything that ends prematurely is going to always have a more dedicated following that something similar and Firefly has both going for it. Plus the Joss Whedon built in following and bam, the Firefly phenomenon. It did get Serenity made however and like I said I enjoyed both, so keep up the good work ‘browncoats’.

Jaguars 9, Steelers 0 – Not much to say other than shit. They played like crap the first half on the offensive side of the ball, beating themselves. The Jags played awesome on the defense in the second half and bam you have zero points. I hate the Jags, we always bring out the best in them and they bring out the worst in us. Next week in Cincy and a possible two game deficit by Week 3, ick. I hope you guys work hard this week, beat those loud mouths from Ohio.

Well back to your lives.

Remembering

I don't really want to get sappy or anything like that. I know everyone will remember where they were five years ago today for the rest of their lives. I know people will talk about terror this or red state/blue state this or annoying security checks that. I even know there are people who say that it is either too soon for fiction based on it or even the crazy ones who believe part or all of it was set up or staged. Most of that will be written about by others who are much better writers than I am.

On September 11, 2001 I do remember where I was (for the record ready to go to sleep after an overnight shift at Toys R Us) and I will never forget it. I just want to say that I will always remember the tragedy, the loss suffered by the entire country, and the repercussions that have endured and will endure for years to come. To the many men and women who serve this country and their communities and the one who've given the ultimate price to make it safer or better for me and my loved ones, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

Are you ready for some football!

Today is the day, the opening of the NFL season with the defending Super Bowl Champion Pittsburgh Steelers (sans hero tackler and savior Ben Roethlisberger) hosting the Fish from Miami and their brand-new quarterback. I’m very excited not just because I’m here in Pittsburgh (with their free wifi) waiting on my mom’s plane so we can go watch the Steelers tonight but just because I love football. It should be a great season watching some great games.

I don’t hold out much hope for the Steelers to have a season that can match any sort of comparison to the previous two. In the last two seasons counting the playoffs the Steelers are 31-7, in games not started by Tom Brady or Tommy Maddox they are 30-2. They’ve played in two AFC Championship games and won one Super Bowl. I’m not really sure how much more you can ask of the Steelers and the Football Gods.

Since I’m still going to have to wait for another hour or so and I’m inspired by Jdub I will do my football picks for the upcoming season. Everyone else has an opinion, everyone who knows me knows I have an opinion, let me share mine.

AFC East
Dolphins
Patriots
Bills
Jets

I’m really not sold on the Dolphins but I’m also not sure the Patriots have enough magic to do it again. They have a tough schedule and are missing a lot of pieces and the Dolphins have some real talent. Either way it is going to be close all year. The other two teams just aren’t very good.

AFC South
Colts
Jaguars
Texans
Titans

I would like to think Peyton and Crew won’t be great again but they will. They are really good and can score points. The “Tampa 2” defense is a regular season monster, not that good in the playoffs, but they should win an easy division. I don’t think the Jaguars are that good at all but I know they will beat the Steelers next week, stupid Jags. I still can’t believe the Texans didn’t pick Bush or at least trade the pick but I think they win more games this year. The Titans just aren’t good yet, sorry Joe.

AFC North
Bengals
Steelers
Old Cleveland
New Cleveland

Man I want to Pittsburgh on top and no Jason it has nothing to do with the Football Gods. I think Ben is going to be out until the bye (three weeks) and that they will probably go 1-2 at best if that is the case. The Bengals can sure score points and force turnovers. Against actual good offenses, more importantly good QBs, the Bengals D will get their ass kicked, they are far too aggressive and get smoked. Still they win 11-12 games and Carson probably wins the MVP, man he is good. Old Cleveland is overrated but again I’m sure the Steelers will be lucky to go 1-1 against them, man I hate Old Cleveland. Plus I still have plenty of nightmares from playing against Steve McNair twice a year but then the Titans weren’t in our division anymore! Well now he is back, damn it, at least he is older and more broken now. New Cleveland and Charlie Frye with a hurt O-Line, in this division, good luck.

AFC West
Broncos
Chargers
Chiefs
Raiders

I think Shanahan is the best coach in football, Jake Plummer isn’t good but they will still win. I mean hell you can put them down for 7 wins at least for just the home games. Then they only have to win 3 or 4 on the road to get in the playoffs. The Chargers are too good for Rivers to matter much plus I think he is actually pretty good. I had earlier thought the Chiefs would win the division but too many injuries and too conservative of a coach. I like Herm don’t get me wrong but the press has it wrong. Going from Dick Vermeil to Herm Edwards isn’t an upgrade, Vermeil was really good. Sorry Triple G but the Raiders and Shell just don’t have it. They could win some games they shouldn’t however if they start using the Randy quotient.

AFC Wild Card Teams
Steelers
Patriots

Remind me again why there isn’t three wild card teams. I hope the Football Gods don’t mind me picking the Steelers to make the playoffs but they are really good and young. Tom Brady will steer the Patriots to enough wins to play in January.

NFC East
Giants
Cowboys
Eagles
Redskins

Eli is going to join his brother as an elite QB this year, probably only behin him, Brady, and Palmer. Tiki should have won the MVP and they have a decent D, should easily win the division again. I think Dallas should be fine with the TO fiasco plus that D is awesome. The Eagles will rebound with an easy schedule and the Redskins are the second most overrated team behind only Old Cleveland.

NFC South
Panthers
Falcons
Buccaneers
Saints

Probably the division that will have the most exciting games. Michael Vick, Steve Smith, Julius Peppers, and Reggie Bush all in the same division, fun, fun. The Panthers are probably the best team in football and should coast to the NFC Championship game. The Falcons could also win the division just depending on Vick, that guy can take over games if he would just figure it out. I think Tampa overreached last year. The Saints are still a year or two away but I will be watching some games, that Bush guy is nuts.

NFC North
Lions
Vikings
Bears
Packers

I think the Lions have enough talent and coaching to make the next step. I think the Vikings are a year away, sorry Jdub but Brad isn’t going to win championships at this point in his career for you. The Bears, I just don’t buy the offense plus now they have to play winning teams. The Packers, well Brett it was a pleasure to watch you for years but this will be a tough year. This should be the gimmick division, three teams, Bears, Vikings, and Packers run a version of the West Coast offense, Lions run the crazy Chargers offense from the 80’s, more recently the Rams and all but the Packers run the “Tampa 2” defense. At least they will know how to play against it.

NFC West
Seahawks
Rams
Cardinals
49ers

The Seahawks should buck the curses, both of them, and win 12-13 games again. The Rams with a ball control offense and improved D should bounce back. Unlike the Lions I’m not willing to go with the Cardinals until I actually see it. The 49ers, well this is what you get for cheating.

NFC Wild Card
Cowboys
Falcons

Not really much to add other than I think those are the two best teams who don't win a division. I still think there should be a third wild card team.

Well I'm ready for some football (and for my mom's flight to get here).

Greatest Thing EVER!

Well maybe not ever but at least the greatest thing I've found in the last 20 minutes. Before I continue on my blathering about Steelers Football and how great it is I have some other greatness to share. SciFi.com is running 10 'webisodes' of Battlestar Galactica, two a week, starting this week running up until the beginning of season 3. If you haven't seen the end of the season 2, well shame on you (I know two readers who are waiting for DVD) but either way do not watch these. The first one is online now, the next one due up tomorrow. Check them out here!

One week to go!

Yup, one week from today I will be in Pittsburgh ready to see the Steelers defend their Super Bowl title. It should be great time. The Steelers haven't looked great in pre-season but that doesn't matter. They return 19 of 22 starters, not bad.

Yesterday was also my last day on the infernal 'summer hours' at work. The only problem is that we aren't going back to 8-5 we're going to 7:30-4:30. Most of the office lives 10+ miles from the office and wants to avoid traffic. I actually think I'm going to prefer this change but I do love my sleep.

I'm also off to Dragon*Con today. Since 1993 this will be my 11th Dragon*Con. It has changed a lot over the years and morphed into basically just a big party. My first passion, comics, have really been removed from Dragon*Con yet it is still a pretty strong show for gaming. With us being based in Charlotte it makes sense for us to come down and run some tournaments.

One Monday closer to MNF!

ESPN and the NFL have been running various different promos/commercials/spots on Sportscenter about the Fantasy Football rules. Some of them are actually informative, some just funny, some shouldn’t have been filmed. The Reggie Bush mobile ESPN commercial and the NFL new guy fantasy player are both hilarious. I’ve played fantasy football for eight seasons in a row now. I usually only have one team but some years like this one I have more than one, this year I have two. I’m a much better fantasy baseball player, although this year I’m having a horrible time. I’ve played fantasy baseball since 1993 and have won multiple leagues including money leagues. This year I’m in three fantasy baseball leagues and will finish in the top 3 in one but get crapped out in the other two. Anyways, I typically make the playoffs with fantasy football but have only won one league.

This year I’m in two leagues, one had an ass late draft and I auto-drafted. If I do well so be it, if not oh well. The other league is the one I set up with friends from work and a few from outside. This one I wanted to take a lot more seriously, it would be nice to do well. Here is the team I ended up with.

Round One – Steven Jackson, RB, St. Louis Rams
Round Two – LaMont Jordan, RB, Oakland Raiders
Round Three – Anquan Boldin, WR, Arizona Cardinals
Round Four – Julius Jones, RB, Dallas Cowboys
Round Five – Jevon Walker, WR, Denver Broncos
Round Six – Todd Heap, TE, Baltimore Ravens
Round Seven – Jake Delhomme, QB, Carolina Panthers
Round Eight – Pittsburgh Defense
Round Nine – Tatum Bell, RB, Denver Broncos
Round Ten – Laveranues Coles, WR, New Jersey Jets
Round Eleven – Isaac Bruce, WR, St. Louis Rams
Round Twelve – Phillip Rivers, QB, San Diego Charges
Round Thirteen – Jon Kitna, QB, Detroit Lions
Round Fourteen – Santonio Holmes, WR, Pittsburgh Steelers
Round Fifteen – Jeff Reed, K, Pittsburgh Steelers

I’m not overly excited with this team. That doesn’t mean shit of course, I was excited over my fantasy baseball team that is going to finish in the bottom third. The stupid java program Yahoo uses kept crashing out on me and caused me two issues. I don’t think it will cost me much but it was annoying to constantly have to re-launch the program. In the round 1-2 turn, I had the 9th pick in a 10 team league I really wanted Willie Parker. I was worried that #10 would draft him but he didn’t. Well the app crashed out and drafted me LaMont Jordan instead of Fast Willie. I don’t think it will cost me too many points, I think Art Shell is going to run Jordan a good bit and I’m still not certain Fast Willie is an every down NFL back yet, still I wanted Willie! The other issue was when I reloaded it around round 11 or 12 I couldn’t get it to sort players properly, it kept not showing players remaining. By this time I had my queue set up to auto-draft so we don’t have a Jordan for Parker issue and I only had Phillip Rivers and Santonio Holmes in my queue and I picked Rivers. I didn’t see Kitna still on the board, I love me some Mike Martz QBs or I would have picked him. It isn’t the end of the world, hopefully Delhomme helps me out.

I do like that I have some Pittsburgh things to root for, defense and Jeff Reed, and who knows Santonio could actually see some playing time and Ben might actually throw some. I do find it odd and neat that I have three ex-FSU WRs, go Seminoles! I think Todd Heap is going to have at least the second best TE year, McNair loves the TE and I couldn’t resist Tatum Bell. I was an idiot and drafted Jones who has the same bye week as one of my starters so I needed a 4th running back and maybe Mike will give him some carries that week.

All of this really means though is that I’m ready for some football! Kickoff is one week from Thursday when I will be in Pittsburgh to see the Steelers take on the Fish.

Congratulations 24

Pretty Bird and I for some reason always watch award shows, well at least the two big ones, the Emmys and Oscars. We watched last night and overall it was a pretty good show. Conan was great as the host and Bob Newhart was as always very funny.

As for the awards themselves, I was really suprised at the number of nominations and as it turns out wins for shows that are no longer on, well that and any nomination for Two and a Half Men. I can understand it for shows like West Wing or Will & Grace that are just done but for shows that got canceled, well it proves yet again viewers, voters, and network execs all have different opinions than each other. As for Two and a Half Men, wtf. Sometimes the top rated comedy show is actually a really good show, All In the Family, M*A*S*H, Seinfeld, etc. or even others it is really good fluff, Friends or Everybody Loves Raymond but in this case the show is just awful. It stars Charlie Sheen, wtf.

With Alan Alda's win the West Wing tied Hill Street Blues as the drama with the most Emmy wins. I really would have liked to have seen West Wing win another award last night to give it the record all alone. I guess I most would have liked to have seen Martin Sheen win the award. I love Kiefer as Jack and 24 in general but to think of all the awards West Wing has won and none of them going to the Martin, oh well.

It was great to see 24 win. I agree a little with Dr. Heimlich that the past season wasn't the best or at least my favorite. I do think however the current, non-stop format really helps the show with more viewers. For people have a 24-rich office environment it isn't hard to keep up the hype even with delays but for most people they need to the ride to continue as quickly as possible. Having the show run 20/21 weeks in a row just helps make the show seem 'better'.

Now hopefully we can get the actual shows started.

HDTV!

I'm sure I will eventually stop blogging about my new TV but not right now. Yesterday we had Direct TV come and hook up the HD receiver so now we can take full advantage of Toshiba's nice TV. The ads for HDTV and the displays at the store simply don't do it justice, until you watch it for 20 minutes in a row and/compare it to a regular broadcast you really don't know how good it actually is. We'll do a little Good, Bad, and Ugly to describe my 10 hour stint with HDTV yesterday, in reverse order.

Ugly - The only major problem (other than they actually are pretty expensive) with HDTV is they actually are incredible resolution, both good and bad. Incredible high res shots of John Madden, Jon Miller, Joe Morgan, Al Michaels, let me just say I could live my life without seeing that much detail of old white men. Squeamish or not, you can literally see random hairs, pores, you name it.

Bad - Well the cost. The other bad is the quality of education involved with the people who work at Direct TV. Now I love their service compared to cable and I almost always get a person who can help me. The problem is the first person you talk to on the phone. OMG, I'm suprised they know what a TV is much less how to help me solve my problem. They are obviously working from a script and rarely offer any useful information. The nice thing is they usually offer a higher level of person quickly and then I don't stay on hold very long. If you can get Direct TV over cable I highly recommend it.

One other bad is the guy who set up my receiver. He didn't tune but four of the five satellites which means I'm missing three HD channels. He also set my TV and the receiver up for a non-HD feed, I spend the first 10 minutes watching HDTV thinking my extra money was not being spent very well. If both of those things were done correctly then I wouldn't have spent 15 minutes on the phone fixing it and setting up a follow up appointment to get the 5th satellite. The nice thing is Direct TV offered me six months of the HD programming for free to make up for it.

The HD selection does leave a little to be desired. Right now I get HBO, Universal, HDMovies, ESPN, ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox. Some channels have very limited HD content like TBS or the NFL network. I also should be getting ESPN2, Discovery, and TNT but I'm missing them. My Sunday Ticket will also be HD and I can get pay per view HD as well.

Good - Where to start. Almost everything is good. The picture auto-resizes depending on the feed. HDTV is usually filmed widescreen so no black bars or distorted pictures to eliminate the bars. Like I've mentioned before the image quality is just off the charts good. You can make out individual blades of grass at the PGA Championship yesterday or the astroturf in the RCA Dome. Pretty Bird watched Prisoner of Azkaban today and was flipping over the detail that she'd never noticed before. To make out the texture of the Green Monster at Fenway to the paint chipping on a bench on the Colts sideline, good lord it looks good.

Battlestar Galactica. Universal HD runs the new BSG series everyday it seems and man it looks good. I can stand to look at close ups of Six all day long. To see the stiching in her dress probably meant I was looking to hard at her but it was still worth it.

The channel selection is a majority of my most watched channels. I got all the broadcast shows, football, Sportscenter, and HBO in HD. I just need SciFi and life will be good.

It will be fun to go through football season in HD or watch Jack Bauer beat up some Chinese guys. The quality difference between HD and my DVD player is making me hoping that the BluRay/HDDVD thing gets over soon, and of course for them to drop their price. $500 (or $1000 for BluRay which I think is going to win) is just too much.

I wonder if Reggie Bush will look any faster tonight in HD? Of course I probably won't be able to tell since most of the camera work will probably be TO pouting on the sidelines or me getting upset that they are focusing on TO and changing the channel.

Only two weeks left!

Today marks the two week countdown until I can stop having to be at work at 7:00am. Our company has this idiotic 'summer hour' policy. We work an additional hour Monday through Thursday to work only half days on Friday. Now I do like the half days on Friday, mostly, there are two major issues I have with 'summer hours'. First I wouldn't mind something like 8-6 or even 7:30-5:30, which is what it was last year but 7-5 is just too early. My other issue is that I don't get all of the half days. This year was much better than last year, last year I missed 9 of the 15 half days. This year I only missed 6 of the 15. I would much prefer to work a regular schedule the weeks I'm not going to have a half day, it isn't like I can't tell that they are coming or something.

I guess that brings me to my next rant, this stupid lack of even an unofficial comp time policy. This is my fourth salaried job and the only one without even an unofficial comp time policy. The theatre and Taco Bell both had an official comp time policy for extra days worked, you got them off later. Straight up one for one. You got zero time for extra hours worked in a day and the theatre had zero official holidays so you couldn't make those up. Decipher had an unofficial comp time policy, apparently Warren didn't like comp time but every department I can remember had the same policy. You got half a day later for any weekend you worked and a full day for any holiday you worked.

We have nothing, zip, nada. It wouldn't be that annoying but I will work an additional 21 weekend days, three holidays, and six half days in 2006. My favorite reply while I was complaning about it was "It isn't fair to the other employees if you don't come in on Monday because you worked all weekend. They don't see that you worked all weekend so it would be seen as special treatment." Um...what? That doesn't even make any sense. The other response is that it is made up on your bonus. Well my understanding is the bonus is company decided, by department, and position. Every manager level person I've talked to in my office got the same bonus percentage. I also don't like being lied to.

I'm not asking for an even trade here, not even close. I'm just asking for a little make up here or there. If I ran a company with salaried employees my policy would be pretty simple, you earn half per one extra required day worked. If you have to come in on Saturday because you can't get your workload done during the week that is a different type of conversation. If you have to come in on Saturday because you're required to be there that is different. Salaried jobs aren't 9-5 so I would not give, nor do I expect, any extra make up for when someone stays late or comes in early.

I didn't really want to turn this into a rant, I'm just upset about having to work more days than my counterparts.

This just in

Matrix looks great on the tv as well. Why it took me so long to get this thing I will never know, man it is fun.

No time

I thought I would be able to blog much more now that I'm not traveling as much. Well it seems the new TV is taking much more of my, everything looks SO GOOD on it.

A long time ago...

It seems like it has been forever since I've blogged, which it has, over a month. Well being the convention manager (in addition to being the tournament admin with Worlds coming up, retail relations guy, plus overall marketing guy, not to mention the other stuff I won't mention) has just kicked my ass. Let me just say Gen Con went really well, more players than I thought, I was under budget (four out of four shows under budget), and I get to see some old friends. In addition to my current crop of players I saw about 30+ old Rings players plus ex-D people Will, Kim, Andy, Kyle, Evan, Mark, Dawn, plus honorary D people Scott Martins and Jim Colson. I missed Tom, Joe, and Juz but they were only there for a day. Now Gen Con Indy is over and it is time to settle down some. Maybe I will only have 9-10 hours of work in one 8 hour day.

Now that I'm slowed down some I will hopefully blog a little more often. Although with my new toy I'm not so sure. Meet our new friend.

I know, I know, not the best picture in the world, sue me. It is obviously the opening scene in Star Wars on our brand new 50inch Toshiba DLP HDTV. Star Wars was literally the first thing we put on the TV, I mean seriously, how else do you break in a brand new TV? Right now the only HD signal item we have is the XBOX 360 and it looks great. NCAA 2007 on 720p is insane. The DVD player sends signals at 480p which is a huge step from 480i that regular TV broadcasts. The HD box is set up on Monday so next week I will be watching HDTV baby! It will be a little bit of time before I get an HD or BluRay DVD player however, I will let them fight it out. One last image to show off before I leave.

Dragon*Con '06 done, up next Steelers Football!

Dragon*Con was fun as usual. Not as productive for the company as I would have liked but it was still okay. We sold a good bit of stuff and had plenty of people stop by, we just didn’t sell as much as I wanted to. It was also my first Dragon*Con since 1994 without Pretty Bird, that was a little odd. It was great to see some old friends, some of which I only get to see once a year at Dragon*Con. There was five (six if you count Jim Colson) ex-Decipher people there, still amazes me. It wasn’t a lack of intelligence or hard work that doomed it.

I leave for Pittsburgh on Thursday, I’m so excited. I’m of course a little less excited since I’m pretty sure the Steelers are going to lose without Ben. I think the Steelers are a very solid, very young team but the Roethlisberger guy is pretty damn good. Either way my mom and I are going to have a good time.

Top 20 World Series

ESPN just ran the a show about the 20 best World Series ever. The Braves were on the list twice :(

#20 - F Mark Wohlers and throwing Leyritz (f him to) a slider instead of a 101 mph fastball. Also Bobby, come on Klesko hits the most HR on the team but ends up with 11 AB, wtf.

#4 - Liebrandt vs. Kirby, yeah we knew how that would end before it even happened. Kirby hit like .800 vs. lefties. Jack Morris was a stud in game 7, not that Smoltz was bad that day either.

Back!

Well I'm back in the eastern part of the US and back at work. The past three weeks have been brutal in terms of working in the office and then traveling to Anaheim for Anime Expo. I actually leave a week from today for another trip to the west coast, first Anaheim for a few days with the family and then San Diego Comic-Con. Our office shifted some duties around and I now handle all shows for our office. That is about 12 to 14 shows a year. Normally not a huge deal but in July/August there is seven of them, lots of fun.

Well I might expand on what has been happening later on but now back to work :)

We'll miss you Robert

Earlier this week Robert Morea passed away. Robert was a friend of mine from Atlanta. Most of the readers probably recognize his name. He was also TCG player who played every Decipher game save probably MegaMan or BeyBlade. Even after Will and I worked at Decipher he still believed game company employees were celebrities. He thought Mike Reyonlds was incredible ("he worked on Middle Earth then on LOTR TCG and now on .hack//ENEMY, of course I'm going to play it"). He really though Chuck Kallenbach was another god's gift to TCGs ("yeah I'm going to play BSG, Chuck designed it!").

I wrote about Robert and the great times had by all playing LOTR TCG when it first started on my other blog. I really don't want to go through everything and post it again, I just wanted everyone to know that he left us.

Julie, Emily, and I will miss you Robert.

Say it isn't so

I understand sports are a business, hell my company holds a license with all four major sports leagues. I'm a huge baseball and football fan and I've seen some decisions that made the fans upset but were mainly because the teams are a business first. Losing John Smoltz would be high on the list of things that make me upset. I didn't like losing Glavine or Maddux or Dale Murphy for that matter. Please stay with us Smoltzie.

Florida, boy I don't know

Some girl lived in Florida her whole life but now her father lives somewhere else. Now the University of Flordia wants her to pay out of state tuition. You know that is neither here nor there really. They have published guidelines on who is a resident and who isn't and in most cases it matters where the money is coming from, I understand that. My problem is this quote:

• The state's comparatively low in-state tuition rates and scholarship opportunities for Floridians constitute a significant taxpayer burden that lawmakers hope to keep at bay, said Sara Hamon, an expert on residency issues with the state Department of Education.

If Florida has cheaper in-state tuition rates and better scholarship opportunities guess what that means dumb shit, more kids in Florida can go to college. This from someone in the Department of Education. There are enough people in government to worry about who is going to pay for this and how to raise what taxes. What I want from anyone who works in Department of Education is figuring out how to get more kids to go to school and it sounds like that have. Let someone else worry about paying for it, lord knows there are enough of them in government.

Some days I feel like Randal

"This job would be great if it wasn't for the fucking customers."

With me it isn't the customers, I love the end user in my business. It is the other people in the chain to get my product to the end users hands. I hate bitching about work but it is nice to get it in type and let it out. They just hurt me on the inside, so painful. I've worked with some great partners but mainly they are not so great. Okay now back to the good stuff of the job.

Hopefully see some of you guys at shows this summer.

Art or Science

To make the color white (or black) do you combine all colors or remove all colors? An artist (well maybe before everything being digital) will tell you one thing and a scientist will tell you the other answer. Not really sure what tells you about the person but it is fun to ask.

WTF!!

I want him to be healthy for mulitple reasons, mainly just because I don't want people to be hurt. But come on idiot, wear a helmet. Not just for the sake of the defending Super Bowl Champs but for the sake of not being a complete idiot. This will probably get a Darwin tag on fark.

14 and Done

It appears that 14 in a row (well 3 in a row, a year off, then 11 in a row) seems to be enough divisions. Sure more World Series (one is still more than the Mets have won) titles would have been nice but it was a great run. Saw some great players, 2 MVPs, 1 1/2 ROY (Nomo wasn't a rookie), 6 Cy Youngs, 2 Hall of Famers, and 3 almost HOF guys.

Done!

I shattered my tooth leaving about 1/3 of it. Last week the pain was insane, worse than when I broke my arm. When I broke my arm it was pretty bad, it was even a case study in how I was able to break it but not break my elbow. Anyways my tooth hurt. For me to actually go to the denist is pretty impressive, I have some irrational fear about them, I could go into it but it is irrational so I don't really understand it. Anyways the denist says its broken and needs to be removed. They give me some medicine and send me on my way. They did set me up with an appointment to have it removed three weeks later. Three weeks, what the hell, I've got pliers and a bottle of vodka, lets do it now. I was able to find a doctor to remove it this week. It was also an oral surgeon and they said it was probably good that I was having them do it. Where the tooth is located the roots could create a hole in the sinus which would be bad and require follow up surgery. With an oral surgeon they can check for holes and fix them during the removal since they would knock me out.

About 9:30 this morning they removed it. Just like that last time I went under I don't remember about 2 or 3 minutes before I was unconscious. There is no hole in the sinus which is good because apparently that hurts and requires a longer recovery time. I haven't eaten since last night at 11:00pm and yet I don't have much desire to now, unless you ask my stomach. Drugs are helping and I should be much better in 24~36 hours or so they say.

Normally I just write fluff about Star Wars or baseball or football but I figured I would give everyone an update.

Not much better

There isn't much better than spending time with the little one. She is an absolute delight to be around, Pretty Bird and I like most parents are blessed. Tonight was a pretty laid back night. Pretty Bird had to work so we just hung around. I'm not the most active person in the world plus I'm on some pretty good pain medicine so it was fun to lounge around. She's been on a Star Wars kick since I got Knights of the Old Republic two weeks ago, more on that later. Anyways so we played Star Wars Legos, another great game for about an hour or so. Then she wanted to watch a movie and picked a Star Wars movie, my little Jedi, couldn't ask for me. She picked Jedi because it was part six.

Now this is a funny story. Revenge of the Sith has been on HBO, JDub, Pretty Bird, the little one, and I watched the last 30 minutes on Saturday night. Well not quite the last 20 minutes, from the Mace vs. Emporer fight until after Obi Wan kicks Anakins ass. The little one knows EP3 is the last one, she went and saw it with us last year. She also knows that six is bigger than three and she knows that Anakin becomes Vader in EP3 yet Vader dies in Jedi. We've had about three or four conversations since Saturday with her trying to figure all of that out. Basically it boils down to a six year old doesn't understand prequels.

She's never really watched Jedi, she wanted to see the Ewoks previously so we've skipped to those parts. It was a great time to watch it with her tonight. When Jedi came out until I was about 12 or 13 Jedi was my favorite. It was great to see her like things I liked and make some great comments.

"Daddy, I think that is Princess Leia...or maybe Luke...either way he is tricking Jabba" - speaking about Boushh.

"Chewbacca loves Han Solo daddy, he isn't going to let them hurt him"

"Wookies are very strong, stronger than Batman"

"Jedi's are better than aliens"

"Yoda is the strongest Jedi, too bad he is old"

"Yoda sounds like Miss Piggy"

"That music means the bad guys are coming"

There were a few more. It was a great night.

More Than Meets The Eye

Something that probably only Girard, Triple G, and I will rush out to buy.

Transformers The Movie Special Edition

Hardest Part of the Day

As far back as I could remember I viewed getting up as the hardest part of the day, at least as far back as high school. Now with my back/neck a little hurt, for whatever reason, making sleep a tad bit more difficult, 5:30am is really early. I don't leave the house until 6:30/6:40 so I don't have to get up until 6ish. I did learn a long time ago however that a relaxed Trevor is a happy Trevor. Taking my time getting ready, eating breakfast, watching SportsCenter, all makes my day go much better. I even have time to do a little morning workout once I decide to start working out. I'm not in good shape, well round is a shape, so it will happen eventually. Now onto other random thoughts.

• Closed Interstates Suck. This is the third time I've been on an interstate somewhere I wasn't from. Once on vacation and twice for work. I was staying about 30 minutes outside of Boston this past weekend, left an hour before I had to be at the convention. Well 4 hours later I got to the show. It just isn't a lot of fun to have a sense of being lost on some sideroad because the main road is closed. The F150 truck ahead of me was my new buddy, where he went I went. Good thing he wanted back on the interstate as well.
• X-Men 3 was Blah. I enjoyed it, I will watch it again, and probably own it. I think I will probably watch it more than X-Men 1. It wasn't very good however. I isn't the first bad movie that I like and probably won't be the last. Also depsite saying it was the last official team X-Men (Wolverine and Magneto solo projects aside) movie I think $120,000,000 in 4 days will change that.
• Stupid Mets won't lose. Maybe they don't go away this year. I think the Braves could make a run at the division or even the wild card. With that bullpen however I don't the Braves chances in the playoffs, ick.
• My little one has finished her first year of school. Does that mean I'm now an adult or was that a few years ago. Hopefully that doesn't mean I have to stop playing games at work.

Trips Get Expensive

I've found the each of the trips I take for work over the last 12 months or so cost me some money, about $10 to $20 each. I've been traveling for work for over three years now but it has only been the last year that I spend this $10 to $20. It was last May that I got my iPod. I got Pretty Bird her's the previous November for her birthday and we both loved it. The trips cost me this before I leave, usually the night before. I spend this money at iTunes picking up some new songs or albums (yes Mark you can call them albums). I usually start out just wanting to shake things up and create some new playlists and I end up picking up some new music. It is so easy and allows me to get a nice variety to listen to on the next day's flight. Neither of us purchased much music past high school or college, hell I was just a radio guy from 1997 until last year. We probably bought maybe 20 albums between '97 and last year. So the 200 album/2500 song collection we had was mainly from our high school/college years. Since she got her iPod we've probably added another 20 albums or so. It was fun to 'rediscover' buying music again.

If you don't have an iPod yet, well what are you waiting for?

Summer Sucks

Actually I really like summer, I guess it goes back to being a kid and getting summers off. As a comic book collector and TCG player/fan it means summer convention season which I love. Hell my job pays for me to go to mulitple conventions which is even better. Nothing beats free San Diego Comic-Con, well except maybe a free SDCC where I could actually see some of the show. What sucks about the summer is my companies absurd summer hours. Our normal week is 8:00am to 5:00pm (used to be 8:30am to 5:30pm), five 9 hour days. That is a typical office type job, covers your hour lunch and gets the company 40 hours out of you.

For summer hours we have four 10 hour days and one four hour day. We work Monday through Thursday, 7:00am to 5:00pm and Friday 7:00am to 11:00am. Summers hours are the week before Memorial Day (now) until the week before Labor Day. As nice as it is to get off at 11:00am on Friday's that isn't going to happen very often. Of the Friday's I worked last year during summer hours I probably left on time less than 25% of them. We are 'encouraged' to stay later on Fridays, some people like to work as late as 2:00pm or 3:00pm on a regular basis. That brings me to my next problem, I travel a lot. Last year of the 15 potential half Fridays I was on the road for 9 of them. This year is slightly better in terms of being able to enjoy a half Friday, I'm only traveling for 7 of them.

I think even if I enjoyed all of the potential benefits of this policy it still wouldn't be my favorite idea. I think 7:00am is just too early to be at work is all. Today I was here before Yahoo updated the previous days Fantasy scores, before the building was open (I got to use my electric pass card for the first time), and was at Chik-Fil-A before they were open. How did I manage high school at the 7:20 start time, oh yeah I slept a lot during class. Well off to my daily nap :)

Amazed

I'm constantly amazed by things, all sorts of things. I think the world is full of wonders and oddities that make it interesting. I love to find these and they usually amaze me. They aren't always great things, sometimes annoying things, but anyways. The current thing that amazes me is how simliar my issues with IT departments are, no matter the scope of the job or the size of the company. The IT solutions at all seven companies (General Cinema, Taco Bell, Toys R Us, NetMarket, Stacey's Greenhouses, Decipher, and RC2) I've been employeed by have all been crap in one way or another. IT should provide, within cost and reason, tools to help the employees to their jobs. Not create things which force employees to spend time doing instead of their jobs.

Currently I want to be able to easily update from the road pictures and event write ups. I also would like a website design to allow such things to easily be displayed. I have neither. RC2 actually has a decent web team but since I'm in Charlotte and they are in Chicago I'm sure there is a little out of sight out of mind. Our website is actually one of the better ones in the TCG industry, it just doesn't do exactly what I want it to do.

But hey, I'm a smart guy (at least my mom told me that once), I can figure it out. So guess what, I'm just going to use Blogger! A free service that does exactly what I want and I can avoid stressing out about it and arguing why it is a good idea. So in case you want to visit and see the coolness that is Fullmetal Alchemist TCG events (really, it isn't that cool but I have a good time) check out my other blog. fmatcg.blogspot.com

That brings me to another thing that amazes me in the not good way. Why can I find a free solution for an IT problem that is better than the one that my company is no doubt paying a lot for. We have email issues, big graphic attachments, a redundant server set up to avoid losing emails, not enough space. When our local email server gets full the redundant system just stops sending us email and keeps it in Chicago. This problem happens about once every six weeks so now we're supposed to keep our inbox down to 20 megs. I get 6 gigs of email space from google for free and I have an expensive thing at work that I have to keep under 20 megs. Amazing.

Randomness

I don't really have a single topic to post about yet I want to keep in the habit of making a post on a regular basis. I guess I could talk about baseball again but what fun is that.

- I calculated that since I've moved to Charlotte, the last week of February 2005, I've staying in a hotel room over 80 nights. That just seems awful high. In addition there are four or five weekends staying at the guest room at my parents house. That is a whole lot of me not sleeping in my bed and I really like my bed.

- I recently had a trip to California and Arizona. I had to fly from San Francisco to Los Angeles at 6am and the rental car place in SF is a good 10 minutes from the airport. I do get to skip most of the lines but I still wanted to give myself a good 70-90 minutes to get everything worked out so I left the hotel at around 4:15 or so. Since I left so early I didn't bother to check my bill before I left and bam, a mistake. I was charged for a movie. I call the hotel and they inform me that the movie was on for less than 90 seconds at like 3am. Normally they ignore movie charges of under 5 minutes but since it was an 'adult' movie or so I was informed they always charge. Now I'm not against adult movies, I just typically don't want to spend $12.95 for them at 3am on an expense account. For me to be up at 3am west coast after flying from the east coast at 7am would have meant that I was up for 23 hours. After flying 5 hours, driving around crazy San Francisco, and only eating one real meal all day I don't even want to have sex with my lovely wife much less watch random porn movie. The Hilton Garden Inn eventually saw it my way.

- As much as I don't like Barry Bonds I dislike Joe Morgan talking about him even more. See I gotcha, you thought I wasn't going to talk about baseball. I watched about 20 minutes of last night's Phillies/Giants game and Morgan wouldn't shut up about Bonds. Bonds this, Bonds that, how great he is, how he is probably #2 on the list of great players behind Willie Mays, on and on. Joe Morgan is an idiot. This is the guy who said he respects Alfonso Soriano for finally moving from second to left field. Um, hello, for 10 million a year if Frank wants Soriano to wash his car the first words out of his mouth should be "How many coats of wax". There now I ripped three baseball (ex)players I can't stand all at once. Suck it Joe Morgan.

- How does 'greatest baseball player ever' not begin and end with Babe Ruth? He won 20 games in a year as a pitcher and was the greatest power hitter of all time. Again, suck it Joe Morgan.

- Free Comic Book Day was a great time. The local store here puts on a great show. There is my next blog topic and I was looking for one. See this steam of consciousness thing really works.

- Back to Bonds. Just sign the guys baseball, I mean come on. I know if I was this guy I would tell Bonds and his ESPN show to suck it.

I'm sure I have more random thoughts and I will probably share them as time goes on.

Its Lima Time!

Now if only we can convince the Mets to start Jose Lima every time we play them we might have a chance to win the division. There is still hope but I really believe the Braves aren't very good and the Mets are a top 10 team in the Majors.

Awful

The Braves are just awful this year. I know I shouldn't be suprised or shocked, they didn't upgrade a team that started a ton of rookies last year. I know I shouldn't complain, they have won 14 years in a row. None of that makes it any easier. They just stink. I will still watch, I will still root for them, and hope, I just think it might be a long summer. I do know in Atlanta they are probably wondering when the Dawgs and the Michael Vick Experience start.

Another Easter picture

This is another picture from our trip to Grammy's house for Easter. We spent the week previous in Florida visiting other family and of course Disney World! This is Grammy and the Little One spending time right after the outside Easter Egg hunt is finished. The Little One had never done an outside Easter Egg hunt and boy did she love it. She does love visiting Grammy and Papa though. They don't know the word no and the house is full of puppies! Good times were had by all.

Well I'm not going to buy this one, I swear

I don't mind admitting I really like Star Wars. I don't even mind admitting I like parts of the horrible movies that have been released over the last 7 years that pretended to be Star Wars movies. Hell I don't even mind buying newly redone versions of Star Wars stuff I already own, at least from time to time. I do what I do both directly and indirectly because of Star Wars. I'm a geek into science fiction, gaming, comics, etc, and Star Wars started me on that path. I also broke into the gaming industry with a company that produced a Star Wars game. I didn't start there during the Star Wars run but I did buy into their products and gaming ways because of Star Wars. Right now one of my favorite ways to waste time is Star Wars Empire At War, that game is great.

I'm not going to buy this however, I'm just not. Two years ago was the first time the original Star Wars movies came to DVD. This newer set will mark the third time the movies have been released on DVD. I'm a marketing manager for a pretty large company, I also worked at Decipher for two years, I'm well aware of shaking a money tree as hard as you can while it still giving money. With either HD-DVD or Blue Ray, whichever one survives, this gives LucasFilm at least four or five upcoming releases with little to know work on their part. I'm okay with a company doing that, in fact I would probably buy two or so of those four or five redone versions. They will have features I want for a new format, whatever. I just think three DVD versions in less than 36 months is too much, even if these are the versions I want to own the most. In the life of VHS I'm pretty sure Star Wars was released five different times, six if you count the THX pan and scan and widescreen as seperate releases (they were about four months apart). That is in what, 15 years of VHS. Obviously DVDs won't last as the dominate format for 15+ years, sorry Evan and Kevin, but 3 in less than 36 months that is just too much.

I don't even like little dogs

I do miss the AJC sports section though.

I can't wait

Superman Returns!

This is hotter than Six

Well maybe not, still good though. Another BSG series, I won't know what to do with myself. Thanks to Dr. Heimlich for pointing it out. I've been able to convince two people in the office with a third on the way of the greatness that is BSG, hell even Pretty Bird watches it and she isn't a huge science fiction fan. Good stuff, I'm very excited.

Off to San Fran

Well I leave for San Francisco tomorrow. I have many trips to "SoCal" under my belt but this will be my first trip to "NoCal". Like most business trips I wish I had more time to visit a highly recommended city that I've never been to. Maybe next time.

Some random thoughts since I probably won't post often till I get back.

• Welcome back Larry, lets try and stay healthy, that and punish the Mets this weekend.
• Stupid Brewers although I do love to watch a good, young, homegrown team do well.
• Maybe the Steelers will get lucky and LenDale will drop all the way to them, I doubt it but me and the other Steeler fan in the office can hope.
• Yuengling is one helluva a good beer.
• I'm trying to decide if I want to see United 93 or not, at this point I'm leaning towards a yes.
• Wrath of KHAAAAAAAAAAAANNN was on today. Despite owning it and seeing it a good bit, it is still fun to watch.
• Did I mention it is good to see Larry back in action.

This weekend is very quickly becoming a 'reunion' weekend. I get to see Enrique, Girard, Goodrich, Beal, and Peiper is even coming down from his debauchery in Vegas to visit. This proves two things, one it should be a good weekend and two I know too many people on the west coast.

This will also be my third trip already to the pacific time zone with at least three more planned later in the year, should rack up the miles. Good thing I don't mind flying and I love LA and San Diego.

Monday Blues

First Jack didn't get his killin' on then the Braves follow it up with a loss. Davies really left the pitch up and then bam, HR, tis life I guess.

It wasn't a great episode of 24, first the 'death' of Secretary Heller, then the introduction of the secret society of bad guys, and finished off with Jack and his unibomber disguise yet still with no killin'. At least Curtis is back. I do wish it was just Logan as the bad guy but oh well.

I will miss next week's episode live since I will be out of town. I get to see some old friends and visit some places I've never been. Never been to San Francisco and then I get to knock off Arizona from my states to see list. Good times.

Been Busy

I guess I haven't post a lot recently because I've been busy, which is mostly true. We were on vacation for a week then Pretty Bird was out of town for most of a week following that. With just me and the little one I tried to not open the laptop as much as possible because then I would get invovled in it and not spend as much time with her as I should. She also gets really stressed when her mom isn't around for longer periods of time so it requires extra attention. We did have a good time together it would have just been better with everyone at home.

Even with Pretty Bird back we're trying to buy a house so that takes extra time. She is also working a semi-full time job right now so it is a lot of me at home with just the little one. But I want to try and blog on a more regular basis. I enjoy reading everyone else's blog so I should try and update mine more often. I'll even try to write about stuff other than just sports all the time :)

Is it 2006 or 1996, Braves pitchers have the top 3 ERAs in baseball. Oh wait, damn it, Tommy and Maddux aren't with the Braves anymore :( Still look at Mad Dog and his 0.99 ERA.

Pretty Bird and I are watching West Wing last night and Alan Alda's name is still in the credits, which wasn't exactly odd since it has been for the entire year even when he wasn't in the episode. But with the election happening already and a few episodes left I knew they weren't done with him yet. So without any other information I inform Pretty Bird that Santos is going to ask him to be the VP. It turns out I was correct, yea me! Just another thing in the long line of things that proves despite how good West Wing is it is still fiction. It was great to see Sam again.

Of all the TV shows I'm probably going to miss West Wing the most. It isn't my favorite show, not by far, but it is the one who I've felt I've known the characters the best. When the show was on, which has been plenty over the last 7 years, I've really felt that while watching that they were real characters. Good bye President Barlett.

24 tonight, Jack's gotta get his killin' on.

Did I mention Maddux has a 0.99 ERA, wtf!!

Suck It!

Taking two of three against the Mets, it doesn't get much better than that. The Braves were very lucky to win two. The Mets are very strong team, the Braves pitchers have struggled and now 3/4 of the infield is hurt.

Still baseball is back and it should be a great summer.

Can we have Leo back?

It is good that the Braves have scored 11, 4, and 9 runs in their first three games. I actually was worried that their offense would have issues this year. I even figured the Dodgers would give them even more than average trouble in terms of scoring runs so 24 runs in 3 games is pretty good. However the pitching, they've allowed 10, 5, and 8 runs, not exactly what us Braves fans are used to. I shouldn't complain too much, they did start the season 2-1. I am tempted to drive up to Baltimore and steal Leo back though.

It could have just as easily been Big Bird

Last week at work we talked about the 'real bad guy' and picked Logan. Not based on any proof just based on it is 24 and anything could happen without rhyme or reason. My second choice was Big Bird. I guess in the next few weeks of TV we will prove this Jack Bauer fact true.

"The President of the United States isn't the most powerful man in the world, Jack Bauer is"

Baseball is back

I just love Opening Day, I love it even more when the Braves win. They showed they can hit but they seem to have some issues with the bullpen. As much as I don't like to quote Al Davis, just win baby. A win is all that matters.

Are you a fool?

Happy April Fool's Day! I didn't see any good pranks, Fark tried but nothing great. Did you get fooled?

For the love of all that is holy

My job deals with the public, either retailers, players, distributors, volunteers, tournament organizers. In a typical week I talk to a few dozen players/volunteers/tournament organizers plus an additional 20 or so retailers. I don't know most of them from Adam. Emails like these just don't offer much help.

"I didn't get my prize support"
"My rating is wrong"
"I have a store in western Colorado can I be listed in your store locator"
"I would like to host tournaments"
"My tournament organizer made a mistake"
"I want to apply for an event"

All of these without things like your name or location. Even an email set up correctly so it gives me your name instead of saying it is from the Hydro Alchemist is a start. Grrr... I spend so much time replying to them trying to get the correct information. My favorite this week is someone complaining about his tournament organizer.

Random player email to me "My TO made X mistake, he isn't very good" or some slightly longer email with no real information.

Trevor to random player "I need more information such as the event date, location, the TOs name, your name"

Random now named player to me "My name is X, the TO was Bill, it was on a Saturday at the store I usually play at"

The youth of America, just awesome.

Opening Day!

Opening Day is on Sunday! The Braves open on Monday in Los Angeles and then next Monday in Atlanta. Since 1996 this will be only the third Braves home opener I've missed. I've been to some great opening day games. I've seen Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz, Neagle, and even Horacio Ramirez start the opener. I've seen 2-0 games, 10-8 games, wins, losses, home runs, double steals, passed balls, blown saves, lead changes, great plays, bad plays, you name it. There have been some good opponents like the Giants, Cubs, Mets, even the Phillies (they were good sometimes) and of course some junk ones like the Brewers (although they seem to be better now), Expos, and Rockies. I've been with a friend, a group of friends, both my brothers, and even Pretty Bird. Pretty Bird and I were at Turner Field's first regular season game. First Braves hit, Chipper, home run Michael Tucker!

Next Monday while the three of us are having a great time at Disney World a little part of me will be sad that I'm not watching Smoltz vs. the Phillies. Go Braves!

I just don't get it

I really don't get the people who make wireless internet cards/adaptors. I've installed or at least tried to install five of them now on five different computers. I've helped friends and family do it, being the 'computer guy' can sometimes be a pain. I've installed PCI, USB, and the plain laptop PCMCAI cards from Linksys, Netgear, some random company and whoever makes the Compaq ones (I know it isn't Compaq). They should be easy to install and get to work, they really should but they aren't.

Everyone of them has produced the same problem. They each come with their own software that wants to manage how the computer connects to a wireless network. Windows XP also has its own software to manage how the computer connects to a wireless network. With both pieces of software doing the same thing, using the same hardware to do it, well it doesn't work. Instead of one working neither of them works and the computer doesn't connect to the network. What really gets me is there has been almost an entirely different solution for each brand/type of wireless adaptor. Some you must disable the Windows software and let the adaptor's software do its thing. Others you must disable the companies software and let Windows do it. Others you must unistall the software and just install the driver, usually not included in the disk that came with the adaptor. My favorite was the one that wanted me to disable both and then manually look input the IP address, lots of fun if you're traveling and want to use a wireless access point.

Everyone has been different. I've actually had to talk to tech support for two different ones, the first one and then my most recent one. Typically I can figure it out myself, there is only so many possibilities, or I can find the information on the web. The first one was because well it was the first time. The most recent was for a USB adaptor we recently purchased to move one of our computers to a different part of the house.

I had to talk to tech support, after being on hold for 25 minutes twice yesterday. The first time was someone who just refused to deviate from his script. I told him where I was, what the problem was, etc. He just kept starting from the beginning. "Make sure to insert the installation CD into a working CD drive", "Now plug the adaptor into the USB port", and on and on. The guy was an idiot. The second guy was helpful but we still didn't come to a result that I like. This is the one that wanted me to input the IP address manually. Not good at all. Everytime I would restart or shutdown the computer Windows would reset the settings and start looking for it automatically. I would have to then manually do everything all over again. Also my ISP resets my IP about every three to six weeks, I would also have to change the settings then. We've just to buy $20 worth of cat 5 cable and hardwire it.

What gets me is how these things actually ever sell. I've made a living in the past building and fixing computers. I'm not saying I'm Michael Dell or Bill Gates, of course they probably couldn't do it either, I'm saying I'm okay with a computer. If I've spent an hour or so the first time plus any phone/hold time getting it to work how long does a computer novice spend doing this. I would like to say it is an isolated incident but literally every one has involved some sort of conflict with Windows. It isn't like these adaptors aren't going to be installed on a Windows XP machine, design the things to work with XP not against it.

My advice, just buy a computer with a built in wireless adaptor. Both of our machines have one, no problem :)

March Madness

While I love the NCAA tournament, this is much better!

My bracket predications has a Final Four has Alba, Cuthbert, Keibler, and Brooke Burke with Jessica Alba defeating Stacey Keibler in the Finals.

First Day of Spring

And it is snowing here in Charlotte.

See ya Friday!

Off to Vegas!

You woke up this morning, got yourself a gun

Second Wife?

Tomorrow I will be in fabulous Las Vegas. It is far and away my favorite city to visit, at least of the cities I have visited so far in my 30 years on this planet. Since last March this will be my 5th trip to Las Vegas, sixth if you go back to last December. Not one but two people yesterday asked me if I have a second wife in Las Vegas. Hell the only time I've been drunk in Vegas was when I was there with my lovely wife. So no, no second wife. Every trip except one of my eight trips to Vegas have had a really solid reason that just didn't involve me wanting to be there.

This is my fourth trip to the GAMA Trade Show, the only business to business trade show in my industry.
One trip to take my two brothers to Vegas for the first and celebrate the youngest one's 21st birthday.
One trip to take Pretty Bird on a much needed vacation. We hadn't been on one for a few years before that.
One trip was a 30th birthday present from Pretty Bird and some family to see Aerosmith.

The last trip was just a few friends wanting to go to Vegas. Actually it was one of a few scouting trip for Baldy to see if he really wanted to move to Vegas. Obviously he did, his first day living in Vegas is tomorrow.

Viva Las Vegas!

Bonus Coverage

Today is bonus day! I've had jobs previously that featured bonus compensation, I've had some that didn't. Managers at Taco Bell were eligible for a bonus every period, I wasn't the GM of the store though so it usually wasn't much. A GM can get a bonus up to 10% of money over the stores plan, so a GM's yearly bonus could be as high as $15,000 to $20,000. As an assistant manager I would get $25-$100 a period, 13 periods a year. Not that bad.

The movie theater I managed I also got a bonus, twice a year. Once was very tiny and based completely on theater performance as graded by the district manager. The cash pool started at $1,000 and increased every year you worked there by $200. Most theaters scored around 60-80% on the grading, so you would get 60-80% of your bonus. You also only got paid 50% of that during the middle of the year, the remaining 50% was awarded with your year end bonus. Our year end bonus was the 50% of the previous bonus plus another pool of money that was one of three amounts, based on which was higher. The same pool you had from your mid year bonus, say $1000 again if your threater wasn't within 5% of its budget for the year. If your theater was within 5% or met its budget then your pool started at 2x your mid year number, so $2000. The number you really shot for was betting your budget. If you beat your budget your bonus was your mid year number plus 1% of what you beat your budget by for a theater manager. Theater General Managers actually got 5% of how much you beat your bonus by, most people in charge of a theater didn't actually get the GM title. They reserved those for the theaters with 12+ screens, I worked there in the mid-90s when there was a lot more of theaters that size. GMs for monster theaters like any 16+ screen theater could bonus over $30,000 a year. I would get around a $1500-$2500 bonus at the end of the year.

RC2 offers a bonus to everyone above a certain pay grade, two below mine apparently. Only one person in the office here in Charlotte wouldn't be eligible for a bonus and he will probably be promoted before next year's bonus. I'm not really sure how they're calculated, they are talked about frequently over the year. The pool of money is generated based of your yearly income. I can't really talk about how much mine is or even what percentage, it is different per person and people from work sometimes read my blog. Let me just say it was a nice bonus.

The reason I'm writing about it is more to bitch about the stupid tax rate. Bonuses have their own tax codes and thus are taxed a tremendous amount more than your normal income. Just the fed income tax alone was more than I bring home on a check. I've always hated it, it has been years since I've had a bonus so I hate it now probably even more. It is like an old injury that hasn't bothered you for years but then creeps up and bites you again. The only nice thing is that is taxed higher than I pay annually in taxes so I will get most of the difference back, the IRS just needed it for an interest free loan.

So Funny

Normally I'm not a huge fan of the Daily Show, it does have plenty of moments though. I do dislike Barry Bonds much more however.

"I tried talking to Barry Bonds"
"How did that go"
"Not very well Jon"
"Really? How so, what happened?"
"Well Jon, he tore a phone book in half and tried to fuck a Coke machine"
Then Jon almost loses it, the audience including Pretty Bird and I lose it, much laughter
"That machine now only accepts exact change"

Great stuff. Barry if you think the press is out to get you or this is racial related you can suck it.

Two Renewed Agreements

Two agreements were renewed this week.

Patriot Act = Bad
NFL Labor Agreement = Good

Gmail > Work

I usually don't vent about work on my blog but I'm going to anyways. I really like my job and the ride I've been on in this industry for the past three plus years. I'm not going to bitch about that. What I am going to bitch about is our IT Support guy, he is horrible. I know most of you who know anything about my last job would wonder how it is possible that I would ever complain about any companies IT performance. Overall our IT department is great, they're all out of another office though. The other IT person in our office is the Support person and this guy is just not good at all.

About every month our email goes down in this office for two to five hours. The reason our email goes down is because the local server fills up. I would go into why that shuts down email completely but that is just too much information. Lets just say that when it is full we can't send or receive email. I would think a halfway decent guy would know to check up on our email server space, this happens about once a month.

His solution instead of doing his job better is to limit the space we can have on our email accounts. I'm all for this, some people don't know any better than to send multiple huge files over and over again over email. We have FTP capabilities and a robust server set up to drop and transfer files, no need to clog everything with huge files. In fact the company has a 100 meg 'limit' on our email accounts. I say 'limit' because all you get is a message when you get close to that telling you to archive files/messages. Well our brilliant IT guys solution is a 10 meg limit on accounts. WTF, I get 4 gigs free from Google with their Gmail service. He wants it this low so it is easier to keep track of the people who don't listen.

I could go on for days about how bad this guy is in other ways but this is enough venting about work.

Words of Wisdom

from Armageddon?

If you don't know the story then you're probably lucky but I'm not going to tell you. So they land the shuttle, they have to drill into the asteroid but they landed incorrectly and are on a big plate of iron. Bruce Willis' character and a few others are really worried about being able to drill through iron, apparantly that is tough. Having never drilled through an asteroid before I guess I'll have to take their word for it. Everyone is all worried about being able to drill through to the necessary depth. They must hit random X feet to be able to put the bomb into the asteroid so they can properly blow it up. Obviously if you don't put the bomb into the asteroid at a certain depth, you can't blow it up. They must do this before the asteroid hits the Earth killing Liv Tyler, Jason Isaacs, Billy Bob, Spawn, and a few billion other people. So now onto the wisdom, which I use a lot in my life, moreso at my current job.

Bruce - "Well the iron can't be more than 50 ft. deep"
Other guy - "How do you know that?"
Bruce - "Because if it is, we're fucked"

Certain things I have control over, certain things I don't. I can't sit around worrying about things that I have really no control over, even if they could ruin whatever it is that I'm worried about. Words to live by.

BTW, that is the only thing important out of Armageddon you now don't need to see it, if you've been able to avoid that hell to this point.

In the Spotlight or Out

One thing I didn't explain, one of the main reasons I don't let celebrity deaths even enter into my life, is we don't know who they really are, or at least I don't. I loved Kirby Puckett on the field, he was a player that any fan of baseball could root for and enjoy watching. Like I said earlier he is one of the main reasons, along with Dale Murphy, Roger Clemens, Andre Dawson, and Don Mattingly, that I started to like baseball. If you look hard enough though you find that maybe Kirby wasn't the best person off the field. Everyone has things they regret or at least would like to change in their past and I'm not going to throw dirt on one of my baseball favorites. Let's just say that out of the spotlight celebrities probably aren't saints.

Then you look at Dana Reeve. Her claim to fame, why she is in the headlines, is for being Superman's widow. She wasn't a typical celebrity wife though, she was there for her man even when it got hard. She is celebrity not for hitting a HR, robbing Ron Gant of a hit, being a movie star, or anything like that. She is a celebrity because she was there for her husband when her husband needed her the most. Isn't that what a celebrity should be?

Rest In Peace Dana.

This will be my last mourning post, at least until the third celebrity dies. Things happen in threes. Admitting that I'm superstitious is the first step to recovery. However I like my little quirks, so I'm not admitting anything.

Rest In Peace Kirby

One of my absolute favorite players when I was a kid, even before I liked baseball. I usually don't celebrity deaths bother me, I don't know them from Adam, heck I don't even really know an Adam. People die everyday, all the time, if I start letting an actor or artist or athlete's death bother me, it just doesn't seem right. Anyways back to Kirby, I just loved him, even when he took Leibrandt deep, what was Bobby thinking, Kirby destroys lefties.

So yeah, I could go on for days and days about how Kirby helped me become a big baseball fan and I really enjoy being a baseball fan but I'm not. I just want to say thanks Kirby.

Did you wash your hands?

"No...because I'm evil"

I love Justice League Unlimited

I got a fever

You can never have enough Cow Bell.

Who would win, RoboCop vs. Jack Bauer

...Chuck Norris? I guess we'll get to find out next Monday :)

And finally, Kim is back!