Future Poltergeist

And to close out 1990, we have the end of a trilogy. I should clarify some things for this review. It's been many years since I last saw the Godfather. I've only seen part two in bits and pieces. It's difficult to judge this movie as a stand alone, but I kind of think a Best Picture nominee must be good enough on it's own or it doesn't deserve the nomination. The same thing applies to the LOTR movies. Return of the King's Oscar was clearly in honor of the whole trilogy, not just on it's own merits. So it was with this movie. It must have been honored more for it's epic feel than for any storytelling effort. The Good Stuff: Andy Garcia is very good as a young hothead, trying not to fall in love with his cousin. The cinematography in Sicilly is gorgeous. And so are the shots in the Vatican. I've always wanted a big room with enormous maps on the wall and now I know where to get one. The Bad Stuff: This is Al Pacino's worst hair...

As of yesterday, I'm fully moved out of my apartment. At 2 1/2 months, this might rate as one of the longest moves ever. All I can say is that moving in with someone is much easier than moving on your own. It's strange, though. I really haven't had any desire to move out or back down there, but it feels a bit strange to finally have everything over here. The FP Gal feels the same way. We're both really very happy.

I just read that pitchers and catchers report in 17 days! Spring is on the way, baby!

I was reading through the Sports Guy today when something came together in my mind. This is a letterbag column where he answers emails from readers and one of them had to do with the defining song of the 80's (about half way down, next to the Miami Vice picture). He lists five rules he'd use to make this judgement and comes up with this list: 1. "The Promise," by When In Rome 2. "Suedehead," by Morrissey 3. "Uncertain Smile" by The The 4. "A Forest" by The Cure 5. "The Killing Moon," by Echo and the Bunnymen 6. "Age of Consent," by New Order I'm curious what just missed the cut. A couple of weeks ago, the FP Gal was watching a forgetable movie about a high school reunion class of '86 or so. At the reunion they had an '80's cover band and I couldn't help thinking how much fun that would be. I spent the next week putting songs I'd love to cover together in my head. Here's a...

Current motto at work: When in doubt, hit it with a rock. This is fairly universal and can be adapted to many situations. If you have better armaments, adjust accordingly. FP Gal: is short for Future Poltergeist Gal. I don't know if she'd really haunt things after she dies or not. She seems a bit quiet for that, but sometimes those are the ones to watch out for. Rented two other movies this weekend. Eurotrip- Filled with stereotypes and gratuitous toplessness. I enjoyed this more than I thought I would. Especially the soccer hooligans. Napoleon Dynamite- Absolutely painful movie. At least the first half hour which is when we turned it off. An MTV movie. I have yet to see one of these that I liked. Maybe they should go back to playing music? Speaking of playing music, VH1 has lost me, too. The FP Gal enjoys watching their nostalgia shows, but I just can't stomach them. Just can't stand watching Who Dat 'actors', comedians and whatnot kvetch about other...

One other thing struck me while watching this movie. I've just moved in with the FP Gal just like the couple did in the movie. And not long after, I started this blog which is titled after my hope of hanging around after death and moving things around. If she was into clay, this would be a bit creepy. So: 1) If someone attacks me, I'm not going to wrestle the gun away from them. I promise. 2) Anyone that thinks they can steal $4 mil from me is woefully misinformed about travel agent wages. Woefully! 3) If I was a ghost, I'd spend some time haunting a women's locker room. I suppose that scene would have kind of hurt the movie though. Maybe as a deleted scene? 4) I hope I would beat Chris Farley in a dance off.

Last year I saw all five Best Picture nominees before they were announced. It was kind of a fluke, as I only say about a dozen films all year. This year, I haven't seen any of them . Two of the animated ones, of which Shrek 2 was the best. And probably the best one that I went to was 'Eternal Sunshine'. Doubt I'll have time to get to many before the awards come out, either. This was easier in the 90's.

What do you get when you take the director of 'Airplane', the stars of 'Roadhouse', 'Jumpin Jack Flash' and 'One Crazy Summer' and one old tune? Create a best picture nominee of course. I was surprised at how much I liked this movie. I remember it as a light movie and it really is a pretty good story, well told. Thoughts: Demi Moore was really, really cute with her hair short. You just want to wrap your arms around her and protect her. Shame that she got, um, altered. Patrick Swayze always looks smaller than he should. And somehow plastic wrapped. Am I alone in this? 'Unchained Melody' works. Trust me on this. The only more reliable karoke song is 'Walk Away Renee'. How do you find an apartment like that? I mean honestly. It's huge! I know they try to explain this in the opening scene when they open up the ceiling and knock down some walls, but my God! What sort of living situation are they in? FP Gal's favorite...

1-3 last weekend so take this for what it's worth. Falcons at Eagles (Eagles 5 1/2) Earlier in the playoffs we had groups of horses playing against each other. Today we have a pair of birds. This game is interesting for a number of reasons. This is the Philidelphia's fourth championship game in a row, their first three ending in heartbreak. There has got to be fear of screwing up this one in the locker room. The one player they brought in to make them a 'different' team is out with a broken leg. They play very good defense and have just enough offense. The Falcons have been playing over their heads all season. Their defense has some good players, especially up front, but their team is built around Michael Vick. He'll probably run for more yards than he passes today. And the Eagles have to know this. If they can take away the running game Vick won't be able to beat them with his arm. On paper, this should be a win (and maybe a blowout) for the home...

Sorry about the lack of postings this week. It's been a combination of work (mine and the FP Gal's), weather and her desire to watch VH1, that have kept me away from the computer. Firstly, I want to say hi to a friend of mine who is Naturally Optimistic . She's a good friend from high school that I reconnected with about a year ago. And I'm very jealous of her upcoming trip to Mexico. In part because we hust got our first real winter storm. Eight inches of snow fell Friday afternoon, just in time to really screw up rush hour. After the snow came the big winds to drift things shut. Yesterday we got to shovel (together) both here and at her parent's house. This storm caused us to cancel a trip to Iowa so it was mixed blessing. More posts to come.

from football to baseball. I was surprised to see this article from the Twins Geek. I've been reading this guy for a couple of years now and respect his thoughts. It's a refreshing change from the strained criticism from here where tortured statistics can always show that the White Sox have screwed up. For the record, I don't know what to think about the White Sox changes during the offseason. If they can escape the injury bug, they should have a very good pitching staff, especially the bullpen. And it's true they've lost power, but they've also picked up some young kids with upside. Will they realize that potential? Only time will tell, but they've showed promise in the past. I think that every good team has a good amount of luck or fortune. Why can't it be my Sox this year?

Now this was a great movie. The acting is great, the story is great, the filming is great. The music is very good all through out. This movie starts in the 50's in New York with a kid who wants to be a gangster. They can do anything they want, go anywhere they want and have anything they they want. The only trick is that they must follow the rules of the mob. This leads to many of the complications in the latter parts of the story. The story says that it's based on a true story. This is movie lingo for 'we've made this up but parts of it resemble reality'. But the movie has the ring of authenticity. It's easy to get pulled in to what's happening to the main trio. Even if many of the scenes have that eerie 'someone's about to get it vibe'. Maybe especially because of that. A great movie.

The newscasts are talking about the disappointing Vikings, but I don't see it that way. After the Vikings handled the Packers last week my season was complete. Sure I would have loved a win over the Eagles. Maybe revenge over the Falcons, too. But the writing was on the wall about this squad. They weren't great. They were good at times and bad at times and you never knew which team would show up. All last week, I heard from Packer fans that they didn't really expect their team to win it all anyway, so they weren't that disappointed. I wondered if it was sour grapes, but today I feel the same way. If the ball had bounced the other way the Vikes could maybe have taken this game, but they weren't the better team. The Eagles looked good and I expect they'll beat the Falcons next week. And then lose to the Patriots in the Super Bowl. At least we didn't have to deal with TO during this game.

Last week I was 3-1 against the spread. Let's see if I can do as well this week. Conventional wisdom in the second round is to go with the home teams. They're all rested from having a bye the previous week. They're playing at home in front of their home crowds. And they're usually the better team. Also interesting to me is that every game of the playoffs so far has been a rematch from earlier this season. In theory, this could continue throughout the whole tournament. Last week the previous game winners were 2-2 after going 6-0 during the season. Jets at Steelers (Steelers 8 1/2) I like the Steelers to win and win easily in this game. The Jets play with heart and that might make this close, but a two touchdown win by Pittsburgh is much more likely. The Jets were the team that I picked against last week and was wrong about. It looked like San Diego played tight. Of course this game couldn't have been tighter, going to overtime and featuring a missed f...

Starring Kevin Costner. Directed by Kevin Costner. Edited by...his mother, maybe? In this six hour oddesy across the stunning Dakota plains, Kevin Costner stars as a good and noble white man. Maybe the only noble one on the planet. All of the rest of them are craven, weak, foul and/or insane. White women? Well, there's one. A woman who's been raised from a child by an Indian tribe. Recently widowed and lucky for our Kevin she's a short ride from his camp. I say lucky, because otherwise the movie would have to deal with the possiblity of an interracial relationship. Whew! I think what really got me in this movie is how little work went into making the actors look authentic. Most of them look like they just came out of the hair salon. And Costner sounds like a lifetime Californian who just happened to get plopped down on the set and said some lines. The FP Gal thinks that I've come at this move with an agenda and that's colored my appreciation of it a...

Yes, Randy Moss was tasteless with his celebration. This is what being a sports fan is in the 21st Century. You can't cheer for a team without having some classless jerk on your side. If ESPN really wants to keep this behavior to a minimum they should stop interviewing the jerks that do this. Stop showcasing TO. Don't treat the return of Neon Deion like the second coming. For the record, I'm not condoning what he did. I hate the way the modern athlete acts. It's not enough to beat the other team, you have to demean them. But...this wasn't that bad. Get over it.

The Vikings again scored 31 points. Only this time the defense played well and held the Packers to 17. I'm sure the Packer fans at work will be gracious in defeat. I was most impressed with Farve's four INTs. I'm sure each one will be blamed on receivers running the wrong routes or something else. Bring on the Eagles!

Rams at Seahawks ('Hawks +4) This is the perfect game to start the NFC side of the playoffs. Both of these teams are schizophrenic. They both have lost games they had no business losing. It sounds cliche, but this game will hinge on what version of each team shows up. Cliche or not, it's true. Anyone that tells you that they have a real feel for this contest is making things up. I'd take the Rams and the points because it's too easy to see this coming down to a field goal or the Rams winning outright. Jets at Chargers (Chargers +6) The Chargers are a very good football team. The Jets are an ok football team. San Diego was thought to be one of the worst teams coming into this season. They've never forgiven that. I'd take the Chargers and look for a blowout early. Best of luck to Pennington when he gets back to New York. Broncos at Colts (Colts +10) The horsey bowl. Should be sponsered by Arbys. The Colts are rested and at home. They're ...

I really should have written this yesterday, but I wasn't really sure what to write. Two years ago, Jan 5 2003, was kind of a big day for me and my family. There had been a big ice storm the day before. My brother, sister-in-law and I were supposed to drive down to my Dad's to finally celebrate Christmas. My brother had just gotten married six weeks earlier and the honeymoon had kind shifted when we celebrated the holidays. I was driving. The roads seemed fine. We didn't have any trouble with ice. None to speak of. Until we hit a patch that had been shaded by some trees. Well, long story short, my brother wrenched his shoulder, my sister-in-law broke her upper arm and I broke my face. Two weeks in the hospital and 10 plus hours of surgery to reshape my skull followed. I'll always have these plates in my skull and 1/5/03 was the last day I could see out of my left eye. As I said a big day. The first year after had it's moments. The first time driving...

Hate to admit it, but I'm about to be sucked back into the greatest board game there is. I'm finally dipping my toe into the world of online Diplomacy. Total strangers lying to each other and trying to stab each other in the backs. Who-hoo! I've drawn Russia and I'm pretty pleased with that. The White Czar is never bored with this game. What to do with the Black Sea? Can I trust the German? How do I keep the English off my northern border? As of yet, I don't know. Can I trust anything the Archduke says to me? Of course the Sultan will promise me nice things, but can I really believe him? Will I spend hours worrying about making the perfect set of moves? Yes! God, I love this game!

Amazing Race thoughts. This is one of two regular shows that I've become hooked on. The other one is Survivor. There's something about the drama of actual human people doing things and especially competing that draws me in. Taking normal regular couples (well, mostly) and putting them through strange ordeals in foreign settings just makes for good TV. Now that Gus and Hera have been booted from this season, we're down to the better players. No obvious physical weaknesses at least. The wrestlers aren't that bright, but they can make up for some of it with brawn. And who isn't hoping that Victoria doesn't stab Jonathan in the throat? As I said, good TV!

Just what I thought, a field goal game with the Vikes losing. Unfortunatly, it wasn't even really that close. Next week brings the Vikes back to Lambeau where they came within a botched ref's call to winning the game. This is both a good and a bad matchup for both teams. They each have the full week and don't really need it as the familiarty factor is pretty high here. Neither teams defense is that good. Both of their offenses are. Expect this to come down to turnovers.

Through an accident of geography, I'm a diehard Viking fan. I'm too young to have suffered through the Super Bowls of the 70's, but they've taught me many a painful memory anyway. Each season starts with promise and talk about a better team, all the while knowing that heartbreak is around the corner. For this season, that heartbreak comes today. This defense isn't get blown out bad, they're worse. They're just be bad enough to lose bad. They fail to hold leads. They can't make the big play on third to get off the field. Final score today: Vikings 21, Redskins 24. Go Jets.

I know that many people (including the FP Gal) don't see New Year's Day as any big deal. It's my favorite holiday. I love the idea of beginning anew. Yes, there will be broken resolutions and this will be treated as just another day by most everyone. But...new beginnings. A chance to start everything over. Are any of us so perfect that we can't think of something to improve on? I'm not. So, here's to a more fit 2005. Here's to making the FP Gal feel special. Here's to surprising her by making her feel special. Also, here's to building bridges to others. 2004 was so angry between right and left. People were regularly reduced to caricatures and treated accordingly. Expect people to be called out for doing so from now on. People on either side. Here's to love, happiness and prosperity in 2005!