long weekend with lots of media intake

My extended weekend was a glorious weekend of doing nothing. Had the best Thanksgiving ever. Hamburgers, chips, dip and beer. Watched Iron Man. Bed. AWESOME!!!

As for Iron Man, good but not great. Decent action sequences, but the movie was a touch unbelievable. Oh well, what are you going to do? Jeff Bridges going cueball was a very interesting look.




I spent a lot of the weekend watching the first season of Burn Notice. I’ll admit, after the pilot episode I was less than impressed. It grew on me as I moved forward. I found the narration both humorous and annoying. I think it’s the guy’s voice. Bruce Campbell is great. I would love to know how this is written. Experience? Research? The result of a Bond marathon? Bullshit? I’ll probably check out season two only to see what happens to the main protagonist. By the way, where has the lady from Cagney and Lacey been hanging out all this time?

Saturday was a big day spent in front of the boob tube. I watched Juve crush Reggina in the snow of Turin. A great set up from Del Piero to Nedved led to Camo’s opening goal and, after going behind two goals at halftime, Reggina just walked around and waited to get on the bus to get out of the freezing cold. A 4-0 victory for the old lady. Still six points behind Inter, and a member of the board came out today and said they won’t sign anyone in January. Their strategy is that the healed injuries at the first of the year will give them the depth they need to fight on several fronts. Problem is that these guys are on the Italian version of the AARP. Sign some youthful creativity, I’m begging you.




Watched the Bedlam game. The defense of Oklahoma St. just can’t stop anyone. They play a good team and give up 40+ points. Their offense just can’t keep up. They must improve the defense a ton if they want to compete with the big boys.

While watching the game, I got sucked into the 48 Hours Mystery. One of these wrongful convictions. They kept saying, stay tuned for the dramatic finale, which of course was just another summary and a new fact or two. It was like an American Idol final episode. Just tell me whether the guy was guilty or not so I can move on with my life. (He was innocent.)




Also, this weekend I saw the Thievery Corporation on Austin City Limits. They are officially my new favorite band. Check out the samples on their website and find their performance of the track “Lebanese Blond” on the Austin City Limits website. It will blow your mind.

Ta Ta for now.

footy and movies

Thursday night I watched Juve v Genoa. What a display. Juve rode their luck and were clinical in front of goal to go ahead 2-0. The game finished 4-1, and it was one of the best performances I’ve seen this season. Very reminiscent of last season when they outworked their opponents and created chance after chance. I’m still not sure they can keep it up. At least they are playing Tiago now instead of Poulsen. Sissoko is still in the team, but I’m hoping Zanetti is fit soon. With the win, Juve was on top of the table for the first time since the calciopoli scandal. Inter won to back on top, but for one brief moment, Juve was back in their rightful place.



What a great weekend. Went to Art’s Bar and Grill on Friday night. It’s a local establishment on Kalamazoo St. that was filled with people, smoke and giant goblets of beer. Forget the Brewtus at Applebee’s. It took two hands to drink this bad boy. Ummm . . . beer.

Saturday, got up and watched Manchester United game. They absolutely destroyed Stoke. The final was 5-0 and could have been much worse. CR7 had two nice free kicks, but to be honest, the rest of the game he was crap. His moves weren’t coming off, his passing was atrocious and he was back to his diving. I thought Fletcher had a phenomenal game, and Wellbeck’s debut goal was stunning. Then I watched the second half of Arsenal and Villa. What a result for Villa. Arsenal was all over them, but couldn’t really create clear cut opportunities. Then one bad touch from Clichy and instead of grinding out a draw, Arsenal went to all out attack for the equalizer. That chance was destroyed by a devastating effort from Gabby, who shook off Captain Billy and slotted the second goal in. Consistency, Gunners. Look it up.

Then it was off to help the Vance’s move. Got that out of the way and it was back to the house for some Coen brothers.

Fargo. I had not seen this in forever. It is depressingly realistic. The dialogue and interaction is understated and not dynamic, but how many times in your life do you think, I’m living in a movie? The story was told, the story ends and life moves on. In essence, crime doesn’t pay.

Big Lebowski. What a great movie. Hilarious dialogue, fantastic characters, outrageous situations. The movie creates a world that is just slightly surreal and lets you in for an hour and a half. If you haven’t seen it, rent it TODAY!!

Planning on watching Raising Arizona and Miller’s Crossing in the next couple of weeks, hopefully before Burn After Reading comes out on DVD.



Sunday after church went to see Quantum of Solace. A great Bond film. Action sequences of breathtaking action and detail. Story was actually somewhat believable, which was a nice change of pace. The last sequence was a little over the top, but what are you going to do? Make sure you watch Casino Royale right before. I made the mistake of not doing that and missed out on certain elements of the plot. I can’t wait until it comes out on DVD and watch them back to back. I’m sure I’ll enjoy Quantum a lot more the second time.



Finally, I saw this link on digg.com:
11 lamest blogs http://www.pcworld.com/article/153615/top_11_lamest_blogs.html

I took the time to scan it. No need to worry, we are not on the list.



Ta Ta.

Juventus FC commentary (if you don't care about soccer or Juventus, don't bother reading)

I watched Juventus v Palermo. I thought I was disappointed last week. Wow. They had a midfield line of 3 that struggled to maintain possession. Sissoko got sent off, which I hope is his last appearance for Juve. He is not up to the standard. Poulsen looks like a deer in headlights. I’m not sure what he offers. Marchisio was one of the better players, but still needs some experience. Amauri. Seriously, he is the one leading the attack? I’m not sold on his quality. De Ceglie was the revelation of the day. In the second half he bombed forward and was quite dangerous. Camo came on late but was awful for a player of his pedigree. Nedved ran around as usual but didn’t impact the game. Del Piero tried and ran and worked but didn’t have the depth of team around him. Giovinco is quite good, but again, he can be taken out of the game physically if everything is on him.

I am disappointed with Juve management in this regard: they bought very poorly over the summer and didn’t address the weaknesses and age of the club.
Weakness 1, out and out strikers. Juventus only added Amauri, and Giovinco if you count getting him back from loan. Now on paper they are strong at this position, but injuries hit and they are left with Alex, Amauri and Seba. Alex and Seba can’t play together, so you left with AMauri and another forward. Now management couldn’t have known about injuries, but why did they sell Palladino?
Not only is he another option up top, but he could have addressed another glaring weakness of Juve—depth. Camo and Nedved are old. Sorry. They can’t play a whole game at a high level and have lost a step. The Palermo game showed that after a midweek fixture, the entire lineup and tactical lineup has to be reshuffled, to Juve’s detriment.
Personally, I would have sold Trezeguet and bought several players (a forward and at least one winger) with the transfer money, in addition to keeping Nocerino and Palladino. Defensively they are strong and deep, but going forward will be a struggle based on the current squad.

Juve will struggle until the Champions League group stage is over because they don’t have the depth and quality of squad to fight on both fronts. They have 9 points after 6 matches and haven’t even played Inter, Milan, Roma or Lazio. From now until mid-December, they could be mired in 10th to 14th position because points will be increasingly hard to come by.

I hope they rectify some of the issues in the January transfer window. I could see, with the right buys, a surge into the UEFA cup spots. I will go on record right now saying they won’t finish in the top 4.

This team needs to be overhauled and a three plan put in place to make them true domestic and European contenders.

And to top it all off, Ranieri got the dreaded “vote of confidence.” Last year he took a strongly motivated and experience team as far as it could go. Third place was really beyond anyone’s dreams, but now the redemption of calciopoli scandal has worn off. Time for the hard work.

Forza Juve.

Juventus notes, Wolverines comeback, Batman Begins

Saturday I watched Sampdoria v Juventus, my first full viewing of this year’s black and whites. I was excited to see Christian Poulsen, a signing that was supposed to improve the center of midfield. Not impressed. Saw very little of the ball and gave it away when he did get it. Sissoko is god awful. Liverpool stole from Juventus. This guy can’t tackle, pass or shoot. Good thing he is the other anchor of midfield. In the end I was, in a word, shocked with the nil-nil draw. Juve had no width, very little in the way of possession and little cutting edge.

Based on what I’ve seen so far, this will be a long season. I have grave doubts about whether they will be able to match last year’s third place finish. As for the Champions League, they were fortunate to get a home win vs. Zenit, and will have to get a least a split with Real to progress to the knockout round. I see them going out in the round of 16, because I’m not convinced they can score enough goals to progress.

I’m really disappointed because last year’s team was solid, hard working and dynamic. The management team should have built on that instead of regressing. Why they ever sold Nocerino is beyond me. Young, hard nosed, Gattuso version 2.0 in the making. Getting rid of Almiron and Tiago is fine, but selling Nocerino and Palladino? Nedved, Camo, Del Piero and Trezegol can’t hold on forever. Hopefully they will prove me wrong and contend for the scudetto. Seriously contending for the Champions League is years away due to current squad’s age and lack of quality depth.



While watching the Juve game, I was watching the UM game vs Wisconsin. They got rolled in the first half, came out of the halftime break and had a nice drive. I was like, that’s nice, at least they won’t get shut out. And then all hell broke lose. When the defender rolled into the endzone to put them in the lead, pandemonium baby. What a great game. Too bad that will be their last victory this season.



Watched Batman Begins again. What a great movie. Not just a comic book movie, but a great movie. Good vs evil. Vengeance vs justice. New beginnings, overcoming tragedy, becoming a symbol. I just really enjoyed it and hardly have a complaint. Even Katie Holmes didn’t annoy me that much.



More interesting tidbits from cyber space:

Bad domain names (from the website Funny Shit--http://humour.200ok.com.au/index.php)

Who Represents is where you can find the name of the agent that represents any celebrity. Their Web site is www.whorepresents.com/
Experts Exchange is a knowledge base where programmers can exchange Advice and views at www.expertsexchange.com/
Looking for a pen? Look no further than Pen Island atwww.penisland.net/
Need a therapist? Try Therapist Finder atwww.therapistfinder.com/
There's the Italian Power Generator company,www.powergenitalia.com/
And don't forget the Mole Station Native Nursery in New South Wales,www.molestationnursery.com/
If you're looking for IP computer software, there?s alwayswww.ipanywhere.com/
The First Cumming Methodist Church Web site iswww.cummingfirst.com/
And the designers at Speed of Art await you at their wacky Web site,www.speedofart.com/

If you want to reflect on the diabolical nature of pop music, read this article of the 10 worst songs to hit #1 from Spike.com

http://www.spike.com/blog/top-10-worst-songs/68721

Batdance? Really?



Alright. Enough of that. Back to work. My goal is to get a new poll up soon. Ta Ta for now.

a trip in the way back machine

This weekend was a trip down memory lane on a couple levels. We were sitting around stuffing envelopes for Tom’s candidate while listening to the Ghostbusters 2 soundtrack, on vinyl. I didn’t even realize that there was a soundtrack, but be that as it may, the conversation turned to our time in high school. Like Tom taping his own top 40 show a la Kasey Kasem. Or playing Bible Bowl when the team was just Tom and me. Or remembering times based on the music: Michael Jackson’s Dangerous, Metallica’s self titled album and Nirvana’s Nevermind. Good times filled with Risk, Rampage and basketball.

The following morning we attended a local traditional church service. Not my cup of tea, but I endured it. Tom and I passed notes back and forth, falling back into a natural habit as if it were yesterday. The only difference was that we weren’t actually sitting in the back row.

I met with Ryan Apple to discuss the poetry written during my artistic phase, and in explaining the poems I had to explore the context in which they were written, taking me down a path of high school love/rejection, existentialist angst, spiritual desolation, and my relationship with Erin. It had been a long time since I had really read the lines and it did two things:
---Took me back to a specific moment in my life.
---Made me wonder if I could ever write like that again.

Finally I reconnected with a friend from high school via that most 2008 of experiences: Facebook. Since I added my high school to my facebook account, I’ve had half of dozen friend requests, which I have ignored but one. I’m not going to just reconnect with just anyone. I didn’t really know you in high school, why would I talk to you now?

Moving on to soccer, I watched Arsenal thrash Newcastle. It ended 3-0 and could have been much worse. Newcastle could have made it a game in the second half, but once Owen hit the crossbar instead of finishing, Arsenal just took charge again.

Juventus gave up a late goal and drew 1-1. This is the season they truly return to European football and I’m not sure that they have the horses to fight on all fronts. It would be nice if they finished in the top 3 again and make the last 16 of the Champions League. Not sure that they can really expect to win either competition.

That’s it. By next week I should be done with first season of Rome, and hope to have some thoughts about it. Here’s one: IT’S NOT HISTORICALLY ACCURATE!!!