Movie Mondays!


David Tennant comes into his own as the third season of Doctor Who races towards a dramatic two part finale marking the reappearance of one longtime Doctor adversary and also of a traveling companion from an earlier season. Freema Agymana’s Martha Jones after a bumpy start, endears herself to viewers over the course of the series. All in all, Season 3 continues to carry on the Doctor Who tradition by being entertaining and family friendly. There are hits and misses but, I have to give the show high-marks for continuing to draw me back eagerly with each new episode. Even when it’s at its worst, Doctor Who still manages to be head and shoulders above most of the material in this genre on TV today. Well worth a watch!

I’m repurposing content by taking my NetFlix reviews and posting them here on the blog. If I could figure out a way to do it, I’d post some kind of link for people to connect and make me their friend on the service. Unfortunately, it isn’t altogether clear how one would do that - so if you know a way, pass it along. In the meantime, I’ve got steady content for at least a year.

Movie Mondays!


One of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time! I’m not usually a fan of Will Ferrell, the obtuse dunce act in most of his films leaves me cold. Here though, he is perfectly cast as a hapless IRS auditor, a man who suddenly finds himself thrown out of step with the rigid box his life has become. Maggie Gyllenhaal exudes an earthy sexiness as the antagonistic baker Ferrell is obligated to audit while realizing his days may be numbered. Emma Thompson is the writer who may control Ferrell’s ultimate destiny and Dustin Hoffman is a literary professor to whom Ferrell turns for help in his predicament. The cast is rounded out by seasoned pros, Queen Latifah, Linda Hunt and Kristin Chenoweth. Truly it is one of the more enjoyable, quirky comedies I have seen in a long time and great fun too! You won’t be disappointed.

I’m repurposing content by taking my NetFlix reviews and posting them here on the blog. If I could figure out a way to do it, I’d post some kind of link for people to connect and make me their friend on the service. Unfortunately, it isn’t altogether clear how one would do that - so if you know a way, pass it along. In the meantime, I’ve got steady content for at least a year.

You can’t fix stupid.

Following up on the earlier post regarding Toyota, is this story about the man in California who panicked while driving his Prius.

Sikes called 911 from the freeway on Monday and reported that his gas pedal was stuck. In two calls that spanned 23 minutes, a dispatcher repeatedly told him to throw the car into neutral and turn it off. Sikes later said he had put down the phone to keep both hands on the wheel and was afraid the car would flip if he put it in neutral at such high speed. 

Yes, a car will flip if you suddenly yank the steering wheel to one side but I where did he get the idea the car would flip if you put it in neutral?!?!

“It does not appear to be feasibly possible, both electronically and mechanically that his gas pedal was stuck to the floor and he was slamming on the brake at the same time,” according to the memo. The memo did say that investigators found the front brake pads were spent. “Visually checking the brake pads and rotor it was clearly visible that there was nothing left,” it said. But the wear was not consistent with the brakes being applied at full force for a long period, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday, citing three people familiar with the probe, whom it did not name. The newspaper said the brakes may have been applied intermittently.

You know if you don’t maintain a car bad things happen and again, Toyota can’t recall all the bad drivers in the world or people who panic and don’t know what to do when there is a problem with a car. Maybe Toyota should include a new book in all it’s cars... Driving for Dummies.

You know you’re white trash when:

You’re ordering stuff like this for your house – I give you the Toilet Tattoo:

I saw this somewhere on the Amazon site – I think it was in one of those panes with special deals and sometimes you see something so tacky you can’t help but look. It’s like a really bad car accident. No better place to express yourself than the place where you take a dump and won’t your visitors be impressed when they ask to use your facilities?

The joke.

I was telling this to someone not too long ago just to make them laugh. This is something of an in-joke and if you don’t have a point of reference it will be lost on you so come back when I have something more heady posted.

Question: Why does Brian love using #2 pencils when he draws?
Answer: Because he knows everything he draws, turns out sh*t.

The story of Toyota and the dummy.

No doubt if you’re reading this you are well aware of the woes of Toyota, the people who put the kamikaze back into driving. It brings to mind images of thousands upon thousands of Toyota drivers across the nation wrapping bandannas around their heads as they slip behind the steering wheels of their cars. If you’ve been off in a cave somewhere (like one of those soldiers lost on a Pacific island after WW2) you might not know what I’m talking about so let me bring you up to speed:

Many drivers filing complaints with Toyota and the government say their acceleration problems had nothing to do with floor mat interference or sticky gas pedals — the culprits the company is pointing to. Outside experts have suggested electronic problems.

Toyota has recalled 8.5 million vehicles, more than 6 million of them in the United States, mostly to fix problems with floor mats trapping gas pedals or with pedals getting stuck. Toyoda said great strides were being taken by his company to put “safety first” and it was working hard to refit the millions of cars and trucks that have been recalled.

 What amazes me is the unbelievable lack of driving skills exhibited by many of the people involved.

Say it with me people...

Neutral

Say it again...

Neutral

Once more...

NEUTRAL

Yes, let’s go over what those letters on the steering column or the center console mean once again for all of us who were napping during driver’s ed, shall we?

D means Drive

R means Reverse

P means Park

N means Neutral

When the car is in D it makes the car go forward by turning the wheels, some really complicated cars may even have a D1 or D2 (but most of you out there can get by without those).

When the car is in R the wheels turn backwards making the car go backwards but we really shouldn’t use R unless we’re trying to get into a parking space upon which we move the gear level to...

P which is where the shifter should be when the car is stopped as it locks the wheels and keeps the car from moving.

N, Neutral means the drivetrain is disengaged from the wheels entirely and while the engine may whine (or race) when the car is in Neutral is doesn’t matter how high the engine rpms are because none of that energy is being transmitted down the driveshaft and into the axle to turn the wheels (as it does in either R or D) so, whenever we have a problem where our engine is racing it’s always a good idea to move the lever into N.

N... like in Nimrod.

N... like in Numbnuts.

N... like in Noodnicks.

N... like in Nincompoops.

After the car is in N we gently apply the brakes until the car slows to a stop and then we turn the key to the off position. If we are on a highway when this happens, we should put on the flashers (actually putting on the flashers anytime this happens is a good idea).

So, that’s our basic automobile operation lesson for today. All you Toyota owners out there try and take it to heart.

Movie Mondays!


Crippled by the writers strike, Season 4 of LOST was the shortest season of the series so far, with only 14 hours of television and 13 episodes. Even limited as it was, LOST still managed to cram a lot of story in flash forwards and flashbacks as well as the events taking place on the island over the course of nine days. The season can be broken down into two parts, the eight episodes filmed prior to the writer’s strike deal mainly with the fate of the Oceanic Six - the six crash survivors lucky enough to escape the island. However, as the episodes prove, maybe getting off the island wasn’t lucky for these six at all! The last of the eight episodes featured the return of a favorite Lostie in a surprising role. After a three week gap (fortunately not to be experienced by the home viewer), LOST fans were taken on a roller coaster ride that led to the three hour season finale! Lots of questions are answered but many more present themselves and the body count continues to rise! We find out who was in the coffin at the end of the Season 2 finale and it is an answer guaranteed to shock you! Lies, betrayal, deceit, double crosses - LOST's Season 4 continues to prove why it is one of the best shows on TV today!

I’m repurposing content by taking my NetFlix reviews and posting them here on the blog. If I could figure out a way to do it, I’d post some kind of link for people to connect and make me their friend on the service. Unfortunately, it isn’t altogether clear how one would do that - so if you know a way, pass it along. In the meantime, I’ve got steady content for at least a year.

The funniest email of the week.

Subject: movie stoeryboards i did....
guys..i briefly worked on this film,drawing storyboards...and quit, when they wanted me to work essentially for FREE...looking at this trailer,it looks like they had no problem using some of my storyboards though....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXXXXXXXXXX

 And the clown was still wildly overpaid.

(I won’t even make fun of the spelling errors or punctuation – they just underline the stupidity of the sender)

Today, I’m on my way into the city and I’m taking the train in.

The Metro-North has two kinds of trains; fully electric, used on the lower portion of the line and diesel locomotive pulling passenger cars on the upper portion of the line. That’s the kind I’m on right now, one of those diesel jobbies.

Another difference in the two trains is how you enter the car. The electric trains have doors controlled entirely by the conductor but the diesel’s have alcoves at either end of the car. There is a door to the platform from the alcove (controlled by the conductor) and a door from the alcove into the passenger car itself.

The door on the car I’m in is broken. They have automatic doors now and this one just isn’t working meaning you have to slide the door open and closed yourself.

Easy enough.

And if you don’t close the door, it’s very drafty and noisy so of course the next stop after I get on, some idiot opens the door and plops down in the set of seats right next to the door.

Given the choice between sitting in a drafty, noisy car and not, I loudly say, “CLOSE THE DOOR!”

And lo! Aforementioned moron gets up and closes the door but not before he replies (although he really doesn't know who said close the door), “PLEASE!”

Priceless.

PLEASE, use your common sense.

PLEASE, stop being an asshole.

PLEASE, show some consideration for the other people riding in the car.

That work for you bunky? Simply amazing.

Today is a great day!

Why, you may ask?

Well, even though there is an incredible amount of snow on the ground, even though the temperature requires one to wear a heavy coat, even though the trees are still bare, TODAY IS THE FIRST GAME OF SPRING TRAINING!

Once again another baseball season heralds the prospect of warmer weather and delightful summer afternoons.

The beginning of spring training and the start of the baseball season is about renewal to me. I hate New Year’s Day and today is everything New Year’s Day should be. The beginning of a baseball season sets the clock back to zero. It means everyone has a clean slate and the past is well and truly behind us. The preceding year is just another year for the record book and everyone has a chance to go all the way to the World Series.

Being a Mets fan, the last few years have been especially brutal.

First there were two seasons of September swoons after being a game away from going to the World Series (in 2006) and last year was like watching the professional sports equivalent of Survivor as every week bought a new injury to another key player on the team.

This season, expectations are very, very low for the Mets.

Most pundits are predicting the Mets to finish no higher than third in their division and many are anticipating the firing of one or both of the pair of Jerry Manuel (Manager) or Omar Minaya (General Manager). This is somewhat ironic given the team last year was picked to go all the way.

I don’t listen to many of the baseball pundits for one very good reason - they have one primary goal in most instances and that’s to generate as much controversy and stir up as much interest in their columns/shows what have you. So, when they shy away from picking the Mets to do anything good I’m actually a bit relieved. Also, these are guys who never go out on a limb in terms of prognosticating. They always, I MEAN ALWAYS, take the safe bet. It’s very rare to see a writer or broadcaster who sits down and analyzes baseball and goes against the easy money.

Shhhh... I’ll let you in on a little secret.

A baseball season is usually over by May.

Sounds weird, no?

Well, bear with me.

Since the baseball season is so very long and teams play 162 games not counting the post-season, playing .500 ball (winning as many games as you lose) is more important than a lot of people realize. If a team played .500 ball over the course of the season, their record at the end of the season would be 81 and 81.

Playing .500 ball nets you 81 wins over the course of a season.

Yet, most teams that win their division and wind up going to the playoffs do so with a win record of somewhere between 95 and 100 wins - sometimes less, rarely more.

So, lets say a team needs 97 wins to win the division and go to the playoffs.

That’s only 16 games above .500.

To put that into the context of a baseball season?

A team that has a couple of good winning streaks, a couple of good weeks, not losing a single game over a 7 day period, say going 6 and 0. All that team needs to do is have two or three weeks like that over the six months of the baseball season and they can play .500 ball the rest of the time and they’ll most likely win their division.

If a team gets off to a bad start in April and winds up in the second week in May below .500 they can ruin their season. Inversely, if a team starts off the early part of the season and has a record of say 15 and 5... well, guess what?! THEY ONLY HAVE TO WIN SIX MORE GAMES THAN THEY LOSE THE REST OF THE WAY!

The funny thing is you rarely hear broadcasters and newspaper writers talk about these things. If you watch baseball with any regularity though and think back to past seasons, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s very simple.

Anyway, today is the first day of the season and my team will be playing the Atlanta Braves and it will even be on TV! I’m excited, I’m hopeful, but most of all I’m looking forward to the Mets getting off to a hot start because if they can it will make the entire season a lot better for everyone.

PLAY BALL!

Movie Mondays!


Amazing! Spectacular! Peter Krause fresh off the heels of Six Feet Under stars in this SciFi channel mini-series with a great cast and excellent performances. Krause is a detective drawn in to an amazing subculture based around a mysterious event that happened many years ago. Alternately funny and scary, The Lost Room strikes a perfect balance between the two. My biggest complaint if anything is that SciFi has not pursued this as an ongoing series. Considering the dreck they normally air and the failed attempts at a continuing series from the last few years, one has to wonder why The Lost Room hasn’t been further developed. The camera loves Julianna Margulies, Kevin Pollack is wonderfully cast as a man who won’t let anything stop him to achieve his goals and Margaret Cho is the jaded woman in a dry-cleaning store who seems to have a lot of the answers. If you haven’t seen it, you missed out on one of the better pieces of television over the last few years.

I’m repurposing content by taking my NetFlix reviews and posting them here on the blog. If I could figure out a way to do it, I’d post some kind of link for people to connect and make me their friend on the service. Unfortunately, it isn’t altogether clear how one would do that - so if you know a way, pass it along. In the meantime, I’ve got steady content for at least a year.

Movie Mondays!


THIS... IS... GARBAGE!!! I couldn’t resist mocking the ‘This is Sparta!’ line. While there are some things that work in this flick, a lot of things don’t, making it border on unwatchable. I read the original Frank Miller material when it first came out, the problem with the movie is it veers a little to close to the source material. The dialog is stilted; none of the characters more than a 2D cutout and for something that supposes to be epic there is a surprising lack of drama. The things that work? The color palette for the film is highly saturated; it makes each scene look very rich and painterly. Aside from that, whether it’s the heavy metal score, the excessive gore or the plastic performances - unless you are under the age of 18 and/or hyped up on testosterone, stay away! If you are just a gore junky, do yourself a favor and see the recent ’Hills Have Eyes’ movies. Choppy cuts, start/stop camera work and green screen backgrounds do not a classic make.

I’m repurposing content by taking my NetFlix reviews and posting them here on the blog. If I could figure out a way to do it, I’d post some kind of link for people to connect and make me their friend on the service. Unfortunately, it isn’t altogether clear how one would do that - so if you know a way, pass it along. In the meantime, I’ve got steady content for at least a year.

When keeping someone alive isn’t the best choice.

Over the last few years, I’ve come to the growing realization although medicine has made tremendous technical advances we are still in a place where we have a lot to learn about the nature of diseases in general and the human body specifically. Our bodies are amazingly complex machines but there is so very much we have yet to learn about how they work.

Perhaps, coming to this conclusion is one of the reasons why I find my expectations of medical personnel to be scaled back and when I say scaled back, it isn’t a matter of me expecting people to do a bad job, more a question of realizing after all people are fallible and treating patients isn’t akin to doing a simple math problem no matter how much we may wish it so.

Everyone has good days and bad days and one of the things I try to impress on anyone when I talk to them about going to doctors, being in hospitals, etc is the people charged with care are going to make mistakes and when they inevitably do we can’t overreact. The best advocate for a patient is the patient themselves and it means educating yourself, working with your practitioner and setting up the kind of circumstances leading to success as opposed to failure.

I’m getting a little sidetracked here...

What bought this to mind was an article I read:

Ray Gosling, 70, made the confession in a television programme this week about assisted suicide, ahead of the publication of new government guidelines on the issue next week. He said he killed the unnamed man as he lay seriously ill in hospital “in the early period of AIDS” — likely to be during the 1980s.

Medical science has made some great advances but while they can prolong a life, there are many times when they cannot offer to maintain the quality of that life. After seeing a few people, people dear to me, do this dance I have come to the conclusions there are some dances a person should just sit out.

Now, we all want doctors to do their level best to help us get better, to do everything in their power to save us but, what happens when a patient won’t get better? What happens when a patient suffers from some kind of tremendous blow to their health and well being and all they can look forward to is an ongoing battle where the best prospect is not winning but losing incrementally? There is the something the Chinese called Lingchi:

In this form of execution, the condemned person was killed by using a knife to methodically remove portions of the body over an extended period of time. The term língchí derives from a classical description of ascending a mountain slowly. Lingchi was reserved for crimes viewed as especially severe, such as treason and killing one’s parents. The process involved tying the person to be executed to a wooden frame, usually in a public place. The flesh was then cut from the body in multiple slices in a process that was not specified in detail in Chinese law and therefore most likely varied.

In essence is the way medicine approaches the patient a modern day form of torture?

Someday, very soon we are going to have a discussion not about what to do to treat a patient but instead what not to do. And we are touching on that now peripherally as part of the health care debate in the sense many people who are opposing government sponsored health care would have a person believe when the government speaks about taking up the onus of medical care part and parcel of the burden will be condemning the elderly:

The republicans charge that Democratic health care reform would, in Sen. Charles Grassley’s words, “pull the plug on Grandma.” According to Sen. Jon Kyl, the bills before Congress would ration medical treatment by age. Rep. John Boehner says they promote euthanasia.

Maybe though, just maybe, it is time for all of us to ask ourselves what is truly ethical in these situations. I have seen what it means to prolong a life and there are times when it is not pretty, when it is something you would not wish upon your worst enemy let alone someone you love and care about. If the Hippocratic Corpus rests one leg on the premise of ‘Primum non nocere’ can it be there are instances where this compels a physician to do nothing aside from easing a patient’s pain and is the only thing standing in the way a threat of reprisal via litigation?

As medicine advances improve the ability to prolong a life is it time for us to distinguish the difference between whether or not it means prolonging someone’s pain?

A true gift.


One of the blogs I occasionally follow had a terrific post the other day I thought I would share:

Woody Allen's comedic acumen spans all genres. It has yet to be matched. However, the first several years of his career are rarely discussed. It is a fascinating period. Comedy devotees swear by the recordings of his stand-up act. At the time of his 1963 debut comedy record, Woody was a smart up-and-comer who'd already logged ten years in the business. But he was far from the personality we think of today.

The whole ‘dating the adopted daughter of your girlfriend’ thing still registers high on the creepy scale for me but, Allen’s career prior was undeniably an amazing one (since, not so much). The blog post is a long one but I have to say it’s a great read, check it out.

The Bronx cheer.

Give us a new stadium and we’ll give you a World Series but all those other things we promised?

F**k you.

Good article in the Daily News about the failure to fulfill most of the promises made to Yankee stadium area residents regarding new parks and other facilities:

Somehow, Yankee Stadium was built on schedule. So were the huge parking garages around it. So was the new Metro-North station.

You know how they say everything old is new again? (repost)

Well in that spirit, have a listen to this old song originally released back in the eighties, I was loading music into iTunes the other evening and I found myself smiling while listening and thinking the lyrics very aptly apply to life today:

(reposted because I didn’t put the video up the first time around!)

Movie Mondays!


72 minutes I’ll never get back, wasted on the likes of Sarah Silverman who somehow thinks her obnoxious, unfunny routine plays well because of her gender and appearance. Take any of these jokes and have them spew from the mouth of a middle-aged white guy and they are horribly offensive. While Silverman can be watchable as an actress, she should leave the writing to someone else. Given the choice between a trip to the dentist and being forced to watch this again, I’d choose the trip to the dentist... it’s less painful.

I’m repurposing content by taking my NetFlix reviews and posting them here on the blog. If I could figure out a way to do it, I’d post some kind of link for people to connect and make me their friend on the service. Unfortunately, it isn’t altogether clear how one would do that - so if you know a way, pass it along. In the meantime, I’ve got steady content for at least a year.

You know, nobody loves you when you’re...

I was jobbing around the other day when I came across this sign. I had seen the sign before but, this time when I saw it, it resonated.

Not because I feel down and out but because there are so many people I know who are living life close to the edge. People who are in their 50’s or 60’s and who are finding the road tough going. There isn’t the safety net our parents had - a safety net of pensions and lifelong jobs. All that is gone and employees today are and have been for at least the last decade and a half (if not more) disposable.

People are living off their savings, they’re having trouble finding work and in some cases they’ve just given up looking. These are the people who don’t show up in those high unemployment numbers we’ve seen over the last year or two.

I don’t profess to have an answer. I know it isn’t industry specific either but what it means is something has to change in this country.

I get a lot of emails from people all across the political spectrum and the one common thread in all of these emails is the underlying anger evident in people’s words. Anger when the government takes some kind of action or anger when the government doesn’t act. Most of what I get in these emails are platitudes, chanted repetitions of the same stale party line whether it be from the left or the right. To me what it underscores is our system is broken and ineffectual – there is no grey area anymore only stark contrasts, polarizing extremes which stunt any forward progress by our nation.

And who pays for all of this?

Why you and I of course and we pay billions upon billions of dollars to feed this great, monstrous beast we call a government as it thrashes about in its death throes while we sink further and further into irrelevance.

The guy who disagrees with you is not your enemy, he is merely a fellow citizen who doesn’t share your opinion and if you cannot find common ground the only thing left is to fight until you are both dead.

Wake up America.

Capitalism at its finest.

Winter can be so cold and when I saw this article over a month ago it was just so very disheartening:

...instead of taking unsold items to sample sales or donating them to people in need, H&M and Wal-Mart have been throwing them out in giant trash bags. And in the case that someone may stumble on these bags and try to keep or re-sell the items, these companies have gone ahead and slashed up garments...

If dogs used the computer...

Would Facebook instead be Assbook?

Hitting a hornet’s nest with a bat.

I posted this on a board recently:

Yankee fans are delusional if they see the World Series repeat in their future. Petitte and Rivera are a year older (really don’t expect more than 10 wins out of Petitte). Vazquez is not going to have an ERA under 4.00 in the AL East. The bullpen aside from Rivera is made up of the following names: Marte (era 7.27), Robertson, Aceves, Ramírez, Albaladejo and Boone Logan (era 5.19). Not names that instill confidence. Gardner hasn’t even appeared in a full season’s worth of games over the prior two years (total to date 150 major league games) and has shown no home run power. Swisher is one year removed from a .219 BA (and he only hit .249 last year). Posada your primary catcher is 38 and his backup is Francisco Cervelli. Nick Johnson winds up on the DL when someone else hiccups. And finally the bench is Jamie Hoffman, Greg Golson, Ramiro Pena, Juan Miranda (and now Randy Winn). An injury or two to a key player and this team will sink like a stone. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see the Yankees finish third in the division this year.

Telling a Yankee fan their team isn’t put together well is akin to telling a priest or minister you worship Satan – that’s how extreme the response is. I stand by what I wrote though.

Ironically enough for the world of Yankee fans out there who think I single out their team an dismiss me as one of the legion of Yankee-haters (and admittedly I have my moments when I despise the ballclub from the Bronx), last year round about alte July early August I was talking to someone who I regularly talk baseball with and pointedly said to him the Yankees would go all the way.  The funny thing was the person is a devote Yankee fan, die-hard and wasn’t sure.

What struck me about the Yankees last year was the ‘team’ aspect of the group, the intangible marking championship clubs.

True. Verifiable. Begining of August, I called it.

And if you look back over the course over the half dozen or so years I’ve written the blog there have been more times I’m right on the money when it comes to baseball than I’ve been wrong (see comments regarding Johan Santana).

The Yankees this year are just not that good a team but of course, only time will tell.

Thank you Phil Mushnick.


One of my pet peeves (among the many) is the manner in which Italian Americans are portrayed in popular media. I’ve talked about it before, the very clear double standard existing in today’s politically correct society, a double standard many chose to ignore.


Let’s face facts, people don’t like it when you rub their noses in their own hypocrisy.


This weekend though I read a good article in the TV section of the Post of all places by a writer who I normally look to for his sports coverage.

If Italian-Americans are hurt by such programming — as they should be — invite spokespersons from other groups to speak on that programming. Invite American black, Hispanic, Jewish, Protestant, Gay, Asian, Irish and Muslim leaders to speak their feelings about “Jersey Shore.”

Chances are, all hyphenated-Americans would agree with aggrieved Italian-Americans. Then we’ve got something more unified, more significant.

It shouldn’t be that only Italian-Americans detest “Jersey Shore” — that’s no surprise.

Rather, it should be that none of us like such portrayals of Italian-Americans — or anyone else.

Sounds like a good plan but the problem is who will stand with us when many won’t even acknowledge there’s a problem to begin with.

Movie Mondays!


While some fans believed the series to have jumped the shark, LOST season three holds up incredibly well when viewed in rapid succession. The focus for the season shifts as we learn more about the mysterious Others. While it starts off slowly with the first six episodes focused primarily around the triangle of Jack, Sawyer and Kate as they deal with being held hostage. It picks up steam rapidly building to a very surprising and exciting climax. The character of Juliet is introduced and we start to learn more about Ben. We even finally get a chance to witness just exactly what happened to the Dharma Initiative on the island. Even the leader of the Others is finally revealed. Several favorite characters are killed off throughout the course of the season, as a matter of fact the death toll for the season is fairly high both among the Losties and the Others. As with any season of LOST you wind up getting to the end with more questions waiting to be answered but, that’s just part of the fun. If you’re a fan of the show, you’ll probably already have put these into your queue and if you haven’t as yet caught the LOST island fever you’ll want to check out Seasons 1 and 2 before reserving Season 3. All in all, the series continues to intrigue and deliver on its early promise. It still ranks up there as one of the better shows on broadcast TV today. Also, be sure to look around the Bonus DVD for a few nice Easter Eggs. There are two in every screen and they’re worth the effort to find for any big LOST fan.

I’m repurposing content by taking my NetFlix reviews and posting them here on the blog. If I could figure out a way to do it, I’d post some kind of link for people to connect and make me their friend on the service. Unfortunately, it isn’t altogether clear how one would do that - so if you know a way, pass it along. In the meantime, I’ve got steady content for at least a year.

I am Jack’s amazing sense of disgust.

Let’s process this for a moment if we will...

The Haitian government which is so incapable of supplying a minimum standard of living to its citizens, a government which spent the days after the disaster the recent earthquake in disarray unable to help its own citizens has the time and wherewithal for this?

The Americans from an Idaho-based charity were formally charged with “kidnapping minors and criminal association,” said their lawyer Edwin Coq, after his earlier hopes were dashed that most of the group might be freed.

Visibly upset, the 10, who had arrived for the hearing in good spirits with their luggage already packed to leave, afterwards bowed their heads in prayer as they were whisked away back to police detention.

Mind you, this is the same government that implored Americans to aid them in their desperate hour of need. This while people were dying in the streets! Does anyone think the motivation of the people who have been arrested was anything other than to improve the lives of those children? Does anyone honestly believe their lot will be better to stay in a ruined and chaotic Haiti?

ARE YOU FU**ING KIDDING ME!?!?

Bear in mind Haiti is so dysfunctional a place there is a term applied to those who have left the country in search of a better life and those same people who strive for that better life and would help their native land have until today been shunned by the countrymen they left behind!

“They said: ‘You are not Haitian anymore. We don’t want you. Where were you?’ ” Mr. Ferere recalled. “So I have been victimized twice.”

This is a broken country, broken in many ways well before the earthquake and while one would like to think the opportunity now exists for some kind of significant change in what is wrong with this nation, this latest incident shows priorities are still entirely out of whack. The US has been pumping money into Haiti for some time now and it jstu proves throwing money at a problem isn’t always the best way to conduct foreign policy.

Movie Mondays!


I loved Planet Terror. Why? Because it is so far over the top! It’s got a great cast, tons of blood and more clichés than you can throw a zombie at. Planet Terror doesn’t reinvent the wheel, it’s 95 minutes of mindless fun. It has the anti hero haunted by his past, the cynical girl he left behind and the small town succumbing to a frenzy it was thoroughly unprepared for. Some movies make you think and Planet Terror demands that you don’t, just watch it and enjoy! Look for a nod Kill Bill in the first reel.

I’m repurposing content by taking my NetFlix reviews and posting them here on the blog. If I could figure out a way to do it, I’d post some kind of link for people to connect and make me their friend on the service. Unfortunately, it isn’t altogether clear how one would do that - so if you know a way, pass it along. In the meantime, I’ve got steady content for at least a year.

Now I’ve seen everything?

Just when I think I’ve seen everything, something pops up to prove me wrong. There was something on one of the news channels the other day about a new employee discount policy at Whole Foods. I did some searching and here is what the to do is about:

Weigh more. Pay more. That’s the message behind Whole Foods’ drive to cut its health care costs by offering fatter employee discounts to workers who are in tip-top shape.
The pricey grocery chain will give 30% discounts to those who don't smoke and have low blood pressure, cholesterol and body mass index (BMI) rates, says CEO John Mackey.

Not being a yuppie or one of the beautiful and trendy, anything Whole Foods does has little affect on my world. Seriously, I could give a rat’s ass (besides I’ve heard one of the nicknames for the store is Whole Paycheck and that tells me everything I need to know). I don’t shop there and I have no intention of doing so in the future.

While I was hearing the story though, it made a bit of sense. Someone who has a low BMI is prone not to overdo it in the food department so if you give them a higher discount as compared to someone who wolfs down the calories, things somewhat balance out. Everyone winds up getting the same proportional savings.

But, what I found amazing was a spokesperson who was on to rally support against the policy by calling it discriminatory. You would think they make organizations like this up but... noooooo, they really don’t:

Founded in 1969, the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA) is a non-profit civil rights organization dedicated to ending size discrimination in all of its forms. NAAFA's goal is to help build a society in which people of every size are accepted with dignity and equality in all aspects of life. NAAFA will pursue this goal through advocacy, public education, and support.

 Now, one of the blurbs on the site reads: Understand it. Support it. Accept it.

Here’s the thing – I understand if I sit around on my ass all day and don’t exercise I put on the weight. My mirror supports this belief everytime I look into it and see love handles. I accept it’s my responsibility to change things by making an effort.

IT’S TOTALLY IN MY HANDS TO SHOW THE DISCIPLINE AND PERSERVERANCE TO MAKE A CHANGE!

I know one fat bastard who thought he was hurling some lethal dart my way by calling me fat. Tell me something I don’t know, big f**king deal. At least I wasn’t at the gargantuan size this blimp of a specimen was at. The irony of it was the same clown dropped several thousand dollars shortly thereafter to go under the knife and get a rubber band on his gut.

I know people who are overweight, hell I’m overweight at the moment but I also know if I modify my diet, exercise and show some discipline that can easily change. It’s not an external force, it’s up to me.

Our society is a society of enablers – nothing is ever the individual’s fault. There must be some external factor, some other force that is responsible for why things are the way they are. It’s just the stupidest bullsh*t imaginable and this just strikes me of another instance of the enabling crapola that is so prevalent in this country today.

Movie Mondays!


Thinking man’s scifi. Primer is a perfect example of what makes a successful film: story. It’s not the kind of movie with big explosions or lots of action but the implications in the plot are terrifying. If you had a time machine and could only move one way in time (backwards) how could you resist the temptation to venture to the past to “get it right” — at what point would you stop? I was reminded somewhat of Memento by the way the movie is layered and how deeply the story is threaded together. It’s a movie that demands your full attention but it is well worth a watch and as mentioned elsewhere rewards viewers with repeated screenings because of the complexity of the story.

I’m repurposing content by taking my NetFlix reviews and posting them here on the blog. If I could figure out a way to do it, I’d post some kind of link for people to connect and make me their friend on the service. Unfortunately, it isn’t altogether clear how one would do that - so if you know a way, pass it along. In the meantime, I’ve got steady content for at least a year.

With friends like these.

Harry Reid was in the spotlight recently for comments revealed in Game Change a book about the ’08 presidential campaign. Specifically, these comments, “He (Reid) was wowed by Obama’s oratorical gifts and believed that the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama — a ‘light-skinned’ African American with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”

Thing is, as bad as some people may react to Reid’s comments (and ironically enough Spike Lee devoted an entire film to the same topic – School Daze) the comment jumping out at me was this little jewel: “Clinton told the Democratic lawmaker that just a few years ago, Obama would have been serving the pair coffee.” Bill Clinton attempting to persuade Edward Kennedy to endorse Hillary.

Nobody seems at all upset the former president, revered by his supporters, thinks a Harvard graduate and constitutional law professor in Chicago (during Clinton’s years in office) would have been suited to being Clinton’s butler – serving them coffee?!!? Really Bill?

Why I like Flickr.

Simply because there are so many talented people I’ve been able to come in contact and make friends with. The image below is a mosaic of all the pictures I’ve favorited over the course of three plus years on Flickr and it makes for interesting viewing – click on the image and be sure to see it large.

Could also be called more pictures of women, buildings and cats.

The light that shines the brightest burns twice as fast.

Monica Walsh Watson
1963-2009

Last February, I received an email from my friend Monica (as did many of her friends and business associates). In it, Monica described how she had been feeling ‘off’ for a few months.

Monica attributed her malaise to the horrid state of the economy, maybe it was due to getting older and consequently she soldiered through for a few months not thinking it serious but it was only when Monica went to her daughter’s school and the school nurse got a look at Monica, Monica realized it could be something more serious.

In short order Monica got tested and a tumor was discovered in her brain. Surgery was arranged to remove the tumor. It came out of nowhere but, Monica sent out an email the day before surgery letting the people in her sphere know about her situation. Monica didn’t want her staff to be deluged with questions regarding her condition.

You’d have to know Monica to understand how very matter-of-fact she was about the whole business (at least outwardly). She had a problem, would have surgery and that would be that. She would be back at work after a short convalescence and hardly break stride.

That’s Monica, it’s the kind of person she was.

There are very few people I have met over the course of my lifetime who have possessed such a zeal, such an incredible reservoir of energy as Monica – akin to a natural phenomenon – so dynamic, so powerful. Everyone who came into Monica’s orbit could not help but feel her influence, it was inescapable. Fast with a quip, smart but also sensitive, Monica was a red headed firecracker.

It was only natural Monica’s business put her in contact with many people (running an employment agency) because Monica was a people person. She made it seem easy and effortless but the truth was Monica was no slouch when it came to doing the hard work necessary to run a successful business.

While I don’t quite remember when I first met Monica (although I believe it was through my friend Mike), I do know I benefited greatly because Monica was a good and dear friend. She was someone all too ready to help people out and over the years I sent many people to Monica who were in dire need of assistance, without fail I saw time and time again my faith in Monica was justified.

Monica bought her fullest efforts to everything she did, there was no such thing as half-stepping where she was concerned. Whether it be as a a mother, a wife, a homemaker, a friend or a business owner, Monica was determined to give it her all and in many ways she set an example for the people around her.

Perhaps there is truth in the old saw about the light that burns the brightest also burns the fastest because I can attest to the fact Monica was a bright light in many people’s lives and the world will be a darker place without her.

She went for the surgery and things didn’t go as planned and over the next several months she fought tenaciously but, there are some battles we cannot win.

While I cannot profess to being the closest in a multitude of friends Monica, her husband Kevin and her family had, I did have the luxury of considering her a good friend. To that end I took the picture above one Saturday morning not too long ago when I was over Monica and Kevin’s house. She leaves behind two young daughters and her husband – a good, strong man Kevin, Monica’s rock throughout a very tough struggle.

I prayed for her while she was sick and I continue to pray for Kevin and the girls as the days pass because I can only imagine how much she will be missed. I know how much I will miss her and that is only a fraction of what they must be feeling. Even now, I find tears coming unbidden because I will very much miss my friend (I started this back in December and could only bring myself to finish it recently).

But again, there’s that thing about burning brightly and I have to say the world will be a little darker without Monica in it. She was a special lady.