Category: media

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incredible

my family and i went to see “the incredibles” today and it was great. i love pixar. their movies are consistently great. “the incredibles” lived up to this standard.

as if one movie wasn’t enough pam and i then went to see “friday night lights“. it was a very good movie though the cinematography is so shaky that i thought i would get car sick. it was meant to be shaky and i liked the effect for a little while but it kept going through out the whole movie. i felt like i was on a two hour long roller-coaster.

if you haven’t seen friday night lights it is a movie that’s not so much about football as it is about commitment to sport going awry. all the adults involved in the movie push these 17 year old kids to the point that the kids lose their chance to be teenagers. the adults are all completely wacko. they treat the sport as though it is the only thing in life that matters. personally, i love passionate people. i am constantly amazed by people who commit their lives and energies to reaching a goal. i love college and pro sports because of this. it is a pleasure to see people work incredibly hard and overcome physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual obstacles to achieve their desires. i’m fine with people being fanatical about college and pro sports. in fact i admire some of this.

of course, high school sports are an entirely different thing. it always seems like the fanatics within high school sports are adults who are just trying to push teens to accomplish goals for them. i can not understand parents and adults chewing out coaches simply because the coach didn’t play their son enough or because they didn’t like the plays that were called. i’ve seen it happen. some people take high school sports far too seriously.

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when bad things happen to people who deserve them

i don’t wish bad things to happen to anybody but i have to say that i laughed real hard when i heard about ashlee simpson’s vocal track / lip synch mess up on saturday night live. if you haven’t seen it here it is for your viewing pleasure. i really don’t wish ill towards celebrities who posses very little real talent (a group of which i believe ashlee simpson would be a part) but i do enjoy it when it is shown for all to see how little talent some professed celebrities actually have. that’s what happen saturday night.

of course, the best part is that ashlee simpson has previously addressed the issue of lip-synching by saying the following:

“i’m totally against it (lip synching) and offended by it,” she said. “i’m going out to let my real talent show, not to just stand there and dance around. personally, i’d never lip-synch. it’s just not me.”

none of this really matters. ashlee simpson will still be able to lip-synch all over the place and be a celebrity, have her photo taken constantly, and be allowed to talk with authority about things which she actually has no idea about. teens and pre-teens all over the world will still think that she is incredibly talented, has her life all together, and will want to be like her. it’s just nice every now and then to see that no matter how many people brag about the emperor’s new clothes there’s really nothing there but a naked old man.

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zombie fun

i’m on the tail end side of a cold today -which basically means that i feel much better than i have the past two days but i still don’t feel that hot. so i’ve basically sat around today, slept, and watched video trailers. i can’t really recommend the movie that i’m going to blog about because i haven’t seen it or read anything about it but i can say that if it is as good as its trailer then it will be a great movie. the movie is shaun of the dead and you can find it’s trailer here. unfortunately, sometimes the trailers are better than the movie – i hate it when that happens.

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they’re coming

the incredibles, pixar‘s latest movie, is coming out in 20 days. i love the pixar movies (with the possible exception of monsters inc which i felt was merely a “good” movie, rather than pixar’s usual greatness). i’m very excited about a new pixar movie.

so to celebrate my excitement i figure i will list a few movie moments that i am looking forward to.

  • the lotr – return of the king extended edition dvd comes out december 14.
  • revenge of the sith – star wars episode iii comes our may 19, 2005. truthfully i don’t really expect genius here because lucas has done a terrible job with episodes i & ii but i am looking forward to ending the story and watching the light saber fight between obi wan and annakin.
  • spaceballs 2 comes out in 2006. mel brooks is the greatest. “may the schwartz be with you.”
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shark tale

okay the last entry was wrong – i actually did do something today that i want to post about.

this afternoon i went with my family to see the movie shark tale. i love going to movies with my family but that’s not what i want to talk about in this post. no i want to talk about the fact that the movie was just mediocre. this is a movie that was produced by the same people who brought us shrek and shrek 2 and it has a cast full of top quality actors. yet that doesn’t necessarily equal success and this fact was proven by this movie. it wasn’t a terrible movie but it just wasn’t great. i was expecting “great” and i’m disappointed because what i was given was merely “mediocre.” i guess you can’t hit a homer run every time you get up to bat.

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we’re knights of the round table


i can’t sleep again tonight. it’s the oddest thing, i’ve basically given up cafeine (“basically” here means that i’ve gone from 6 to 8 diet cokes a day to one every other day or so – i’ve allowed myself 3 in seven days). i was sleeping fine before doing this but i figured that i would sleep even better if i turned into a caffeine-nazi. it appears that i figured wrong. ever since dramatically cutting back on the caffeine i’ve had incredible difficulties sleeping. earlier this week i was only get three or so hours of sleep a night. who knew that caffeine was actually helping me to sleep better. 🙂

anyhow, while i’m stuck in the land of insomnia i am watching monty phyton’s “search for the holy grail.” a truly great movie. it’s so sad that pam, my wife, doesn’t understand it anyhow, for you’re enjoyment i’m including the lyrics to the “camelot” song. i hope you enjoy.

we’re knights of the round table, we dance whene we’re able.
we do routines, and border scenes, and footwork imp-e-cable;
we dine well here in camelot, we eat ham and jam and spamalot.

we’re knights of the round table, our shows are for-mid-able
the many times, we’re given rhymes, that are quite un-sing-able
we’re often mad in camelot, we sing from the lie of hamalot!

though we’re tough and able,
quite in-de-fa-ti-gable,
between our quests, we seek and rest and impersonate clark gable,
it’s a busy life in camelot:

i have to push the pram-a-lot!

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“saved”

i just finished an interesting blog entry on the movie “saved” that will be released friday, may 28. the blog is done by walt muller who heads up the center for parent / youth understanding (cpyu) a corny name but a very good writer. he writes about media and entertainment and how CHRISTianity can be engaged in the conversation that is happening within film and television. he does a very good job of encouraging that conversation. anyways, i haven’t seen the movie so i won’t comment on it but here’s his blog entry.

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my little buttercup

My little buttercup has the sweetest smile
Dear little buttercup won�t you stay a while
Come with me where moon beams paint the sky
And you and I might linger in the sweet by and by

Oh dear little buttercup with your eyes so blue
Oh little buttercup you�re a dream come true
You and I will settle down in a cottage built for two
Oh dear little buttercup I Love you

(Everybody)
My little buttercup has the sweetest � SMILE!
Dear little buttercup won�t you stay a � while, WHILE!
You and I will settle down in a cottage built for two
Dear � little buttercup, Sweet � little buttercup
My little buttercup � I Love you

sorry, but i’m watching the “the three amigos” and i couldn’t resist quoting from their great dance scene. there’s nothing quite like a group of pansy actors dancing in front of a group of scared stiff pistolerios.

you don’t have a problem with that do you, “you son of a motherless goat”.

it would have to be a blast to do something completely insane and random like their dance with a group of people who have no idea what is going on. i personally have never danced in front of a bunch of south of the border criminals. the closest i have ever come to anything like this would be the time that i convinced a group of people in one of the elevators in the state capital to join me in singing “you are my sunshine”. i entered the elevator and saw the group of people in there. on a whim i asked if anyone would like to sing with me. one nice older lady said “we won’t all know the same song”. where upon i said “how, about ‘you are my sunshine’, we all know that don’t we”. she said yes, and we started to sing. it was a cool but odd moment. for one song we were a community of people. then the elevator stopped and it was over.

i, of course, stole this idea from tony campolo – who did it first – but it was still fun.

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the green hour

i’ve been sitting at home today all day long while it has rained outside. i’ve had to be at the house because i’ve been waiting for a fedex package to come. in order to pick up “fred” (see last entry) i have to have this package because it has my loan info. i had planned on doing yard work while i waited for the package but GOD decided that baton rouge needed to be watered – and of course HE was right. the city definitely needed the water because my grass is now smiling.

while i was sitting at home i did two things: 1) i watched two clint eastwood movies – a very good experience, 2) i perfected the art of being bored – a good experience because it’s always nice to perfect something but it was a tedious thing to accomplish. while i was perfecting the art of boredom i came to my blog multiple times, each time hoping that someone had posted a comment or maybe the system had crashed, or possiblly my system had been hacked into and someone had placed a picture of the head of arnold schwarzenegger on a dog or something else cool like that. then i would have had something to respond to, fix, or at least complain about. sometimes something breaking down is simply better than continuous nothing or monotony. but no, there was no evidence of a comment or even a croatician hacker having hit the blog.

so i decided that i would change the look of the blog. after all, the graphical content of this list of online ramblings should stand out and make a statement other than “reading this stuff is exactly as boring as this page looks.” it would be nice for the blog to at least look intriguing for the eastern european hacker that i keep hoping will deface my website. so i went on a mission to find a better style for the blog. unfortunately, what i found is that people actually expect me to know how to change the style on my own. apparently, everyone else who uses one of these things knows what they are doing and some how i have been collectively left out of the loop. the world is against me and doesn’t want me to have an graphically exciting blog to attract my arnold-buddy from the former soviet-blocked area to visit and destroy my site. nobody likes me, everybody hates me, think i’ll eat some worms…”

here’s where my begging comes in. if anyone from croatia visits here could you please help me make this blog look better before you demolish it to pay tribute to the “governator”? i would really appreciate some help in making the blog green or having a cool picture of my eyebrow at the top. any help would really appreciated.

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habit forming

i’m trying to start posting again but the problem here is that i have lost the habit of posting. by losing the habit of posting i have lost the habit of looking for stories to tell – be cause let’s face it these blogs are really about us telling the stories of our daily lives. so since i have lost the ability to look for stories within my daily life i have nothing to post.

this means that if i’m going to start blogging again i have to start posting again and start looking for stories. the two things goes hand in hand.

a slightly funny note is that for some reason i have been sent a free year’s subscription to “vibe”magazine – “the magazine for the urban black man” – the tag line of the magazine. i’m not sure why i was sent a free subscription but it was still mighty nice of someone to send it to me. people are so nice.