Future Poltergeist

I spoke too quickly the other day. The scale of this disaster is hard to comprehend. Talk of reopening and rebuilding the city is being measured in months. Months. That's really, really hard to think about in today's day and age. All I can do is hope that the estimates are wrong. That the damage is somehow less than it looks. That some level of recovery is possible. Almost everyone I talked to on the phones today (at the travel agency) wanted to talk about what's going on down there. Many of them had questions of what would happen to the city from a travel standpoint. Obviously, the tourist industry is broken to bits. Less obvious is what will happen going forward. The biggest danger to New Orleans recovery is no one will go there again. I fervently hope that as they rebuild, conventioneers and tourists will make special efforts to go there. New Orleans will need it.

to my friend who just got engaged !

Just a note on how happy I am that New Orleans wasn't hit as hard as perdicted. Haven't been there since October 2001 and that's too long. The FP Gal hasn't been there at all. Will have to change that in the coming year. My personal interest isn't as much with Bourbon St as it is with the art and antique stores elsewhere in the French Quarter. Well, I enjoy the Bourbon St part, too. Anyway, I'm glad that the Crecent City is still around. Very glad. Truly one of the jewels of our country.

Link I'd take a mere 5000 and I'd be happy with that. (Note: The FP Gal isn't looking for any additional help with me.)

Finally broke down and started to order some music off of iTunes. These are the first ten I ordered: I Believe (When I Fall in Love) - Stevie Wonder F.N.T. - Semisonic Boys of Summer - Don Henley Say You Love Me - Fleetwood Mac Strange Desire - INXS Steppin' Out - Joe Jackson Let Her Cry - Hottie & the Blowfish Jackie Wilson Said - Dexy's Midnight Runners [original Van Morrison unavailable!] Life is a Highway - Tom Cochrane Under the Milky Way - The Church Very happy so far.

The antidote from 'Fargo' is this movie. Set mostly in the desert, waves of heat almost rise from the DVD case. This was the Best Picture winner of '96 and it's a great one. The story involves a very badly burned man who is recovered by the Allies in the last part of WWII. Ralph Fiennes plays the 'english' patient and does an outstanding job. He probably deserves a medal just for the makeup he had to endure. The patient has almost no memory of who he is or was. He falls under the care of a Canadian nurse (the very pretty Juliette Binoche) who believes that she is cursed. "Everyone who loves me, dies", she believes. She takes him out of the medical convoy to spend his last days in an abandoned Italian monastary. She's joined there by Caravaggio (Willem Dafoe) a former intelligence man and a Sikh bomb disposer, Kip (Naveen Andrews currently on the show 'Lost'). The movie is told through flashbacks, as bits of memory come back to the p...

Let me get the Minnesota complaints out of the way first. This movie would have been well served if a simple state map was used. And the accents are very over the top (and annoying). I've lived in the Cities (almost no one here calls them the Twin Cities) almost ten years and almost never heard the Minneyota dialect from this here film. Now that that's out of the way, let me talk about the film. The story is interesting. The characters are interesting and well acted. The camera work is very good. Can't remember another movie that captures the Minnesota winter this well. Especially the parts of driving past Minnesota cornfields that are covered with snow. Blankets of eternal and infinite snow. This movie captures that. After watching, I had to remind myself that it's summer out right now. That's how effective it was. This movie is good, but not great. I can think of at least three other Cohen brother movies that are better, Raising Arizona, Big Lebowski ...

Light blogging again this past week, I know. Very busy is all I can say. The open house went very well but we're glad to have it behind us. With all of the wedding stuff behind us (except for the honeymoon), it's good to not be planning any more parties or surprises. Kind of a busy sports week for me and I was stuck because I don't want to drive the FP Gal over the edge. The White Sox came up here to Minnesota for a three game set. My work schedule makes it tough for me to attend weekday sporting events so I couldn't go to any of them. Tuesday night's game was one of the best of the season. Freddy Garcia pitched (and lost) a one-hitter with the only hit being a homerun. Johan Santana pitched a three hitter and shut out my Sox. It may seem strange to refer to a game that your team lost as a great game, but it was. The Sox looked sharp. The at-bats looked good. The defense looked crisp. And the pitching was top notch. It was a marked contrast to their p...

First stage: Denial - The party is weeks off and we don't need to prepare for it. We could even hold off inviting people. Second stage: Anger - Why doesn't he/she (probably he) realize how much work we still need to do! Conversly, why didn't she want to do anything when her show is on? Now that mine is on, we're bad people if we aren't cleaning. Third stage: Bargaining - If you'll leave me alone for an hour, I'll help with the yard, ok? Fourth stage: Depression - People coming will judge this house (and myself) very harshly! It'll never be good enough! And the yard could sprout weeds since it was mowed yesterday! Fifth stage: Acceptance - It's as good as it'll get. Hope that's good enough. UPDATE: Everything went very well and we all had a good time.

I've been tagged by my friend at Naturally Optimistic (my first tag!). She's listed five of her idiosyncracies and asked me to do the same. Here goes: 1) This is the weirdest one. I read all of the time. Usually two or three books going at one time. But if I get within 40 pages of the end of a book, I have to finish it before the end of the next day. Maybe it's more of a project than an idiosyncracy, but it is weird. 2) I must greet any cat I see out on the street or in a store. Really it's only polite, right? And then I always feel guilty if I haven't washed the scent off before I get home to my cats. 3) My sport superstitions are numerous and defy categorizing. Suffice it to say that I remember which shirt I'm wearing during bad Viking losses and will avoid it on game days for the rest of the season. And I can't escape the feeling that whether I'm watching the team or not has an effect on how they play. 4) Don't like to have people to...

I'm not nearly as far behind as you'd guess from my posts. Can't believe it took me so long to finish up '95. You can blame the trip up north if you'd like. Or the reception. But the real answer is probably laziness. Anyway, I'm almost halfway through '96 and going strong. I don't know what odds I would have given myself at getting through all 50 before the year began, but this blog has been the differance. Feeling acountable to the literally eight people that read this on a regular basis had been an inspiration.

Babe Apollo 13 Braveheart Il Postino Sense and Sensiblity This year's set of movies is a bit of a mixed bag. 'Apollo 13' and 'Braveheart' were clearly the class of the year. 'Sense' is certainly oscar-worthy. 'Babe' was good, but probably not good enough for a nominee. And 'Il Postino'? Ick. I would have replaced the two of them with 'Toy Story' and 'Seven'. 'Braveheart' won Best Picture and that's fine with me. My personal choice would have been 'Apollo 13', but they're both great movies. Mel Gibson won best Director for Braveheart and I'm fine with that, too. Nothing really stands out as far as music in these films. Some solid scores, but nothing outstanding. A solid year and that's not so bad.

Saw this movie in the theater with my mom. I enjoyed the story. She enjoyed the dishes. We saw the same screen but totally different movies. Other family note; my cousin-in-law in Cincinnati thinks this is the worst movie he has ever seen. My thoughts are different. I thought it was very good. The secret to this movie (and all of Jane Austen's stories) is the very understated love story. It's present and we can see the effect, but everything is turned inward. Emma Thompson is the key figure in this story. After falling in love early with a man who can't express his own feelings to her, she's left in a terrible spot. Obviously in love, but not allowed to admit it. The screws are tightened later when she's told that her love has secretly proposed to another. Told by his fiance. And sworn to secrecy so she can't even get the release of comfort from her mother and sisters. Thompson does this very well and was rewarded with a best actress nominee. Kate ...

Got back into town and was catching up on my blog reading when I ran across this and this from James Lileks. Two posts that include praise for the book ' Krakatoa ' that I read a few months ago. He enjoyed it more than I did and our reactions were related. The book has three basic sections: a history of the area, the actual eruption and the aftermath period. The first section details some of the early eruptions including possible mythical ones. It also discusses the spice trade that came through there and the dutch colonization of the area. The weakness (which James liked) is the constant digressions and footnotes. I found it unfocused and distracting. A better history of that area can be found in ' Scents of Eden ', a history of the spice trade. The second section was easily the strongest. The explosion was an enormous event, producing the loudest sound in recorded history. The ash and debris effected weather and sunsets for the next couple of years. The pr...

and I'm ready to blog up a storm. First thing first, keep peppermint handy if you have occasional upset stomach. Altoids work well and I'm never traveling without them again. I know, TMI, but what can you do. Some odds and ends from the last few weeks. Our reception went off well. Got to see some old friends and that's always good. Everyone loved the FP Gal, but how can you not? When we were putting together the menu, we told them no anchovies. The centerpiece of the buffet table? Anchovie spears. FP Gal's dad ate one (and enjoyed it). The highlight of the affair was the wedding video which my talented bride put together. (Of course I have to gush but everyone there was very impressed even before they knew that she put it together.) The open house is tomorrow and we're looking forward to it. Left for a week and my White Sox failed to win a game while I was gone. What's worse is that they dropped three of them to the local team. The smugness will r...

Beautiful lake 

Running with the wolves 

Beautiful FP Gal 

and no good excuse. Just lots of inferior ones. And the next week I'll be away from the computer. I'll be lounging by a lake (picture to follow). Take care!

but I've got something in common with the terrorists down at Gitmo. We're reading the same thing .

A commenter to this post wanted a little outside perspective. I'm sure there are plenty of biases within the SABR community (as there are everywhere else as well) and it would have helpful and refreshing to see an 'outsiders' take on it. SABR is the Society of American Baseball Research and they take a strongly statistical approach to analyzing baseball. They lovingly refer to themselves as statheads. I've read probably a dozen or so books that would fall into the 'stathead' category, including some by Bill James one of the biggest names of the movement. In fact, I'm reading a book by him concerning the Hall of Fame right now. I respect what they're doing. But...they've got some blind spots. (And, yes, these are generalizations.) 1) The biggest blind spot is in counting out the opinions of people who play the game for a living. They seem to think that athletes opinions on what's going on during play or over the course of a season is worth very l...

the funniest thing I've read this year. Warning! Possible (but not likely) spoilers of the most recent Star Wars film.

I think this is the logical follow up to this .

Not a good pickup line according to the FP Gal. Update: Hey, another Tuesday post !

My diplomacy game is finally over. Russia was able to push to a solo win, thank you very much. That brings my online record to 1-0. Maybe I should go pro!

The Twins are hosting Oakland at the dome right now. The FP Gal asked me who I was rooting for. It's a tricky question. The Twins are the Sox rivals and cheering for them is tricky to say the least. On the other hand, the A's have owned them, winning 7 of the 9 games they've played this year. It'd be painful to finally get into the playoffs only to lose (probably swept) by the A's. And the A's certainly look playoff bound. They lead the wild card by a couple of games (depending on when you're reading this). They only trail the Angels in the West by a couple of games. And they've been playing outstanding ball for the last couple of months. If you were to put money down on two teams to make the playoffs from the AL it'd be Oakland and Chicago. The other two spots? Who knows? About 8 other teams are one hot streak away from contention. So who to root for? Part of me wants the Twins to suffer as painful a second half as the White Sox did la...