Weekend Roundup

Wrapping the week up...

1.) Saw Gran Torino today and it was excellent. Starring and directed by Clint Eastwood, its a good mix of drama, comedy, and tension. I'm sure many senior citizens can relate to Clint's character's anger in how sad today's society can be towards others. Its rare I walk out of a movie theater these days feeling somewhat emotional but this movie almost got me. Not to be confused by the video game Gran Torismo.

2.) Again, when will SUV owners learn that you need to clean the snow off the top of your vehicles as well.

3.) The missus rented Mamma Mia (the Meryl Streep movie) and she summed it up beautifully at the end..."if we ever end up seeing Mamma Mia on broadway, please shoot me in the head".

4.) Played some Wii over the weekend. I'm pretty much a Playstation 3 guy but I'll admit the Wii has some charm. One game that I need to get for PS3 that I played on the Wii was "American Idol". There's nothing like singing "Don't Know Much" by Linda Ronstadt and Aaron Neville and then having Simon Cowell's voice praise you like a rock star.

5.) Picked up Season 5 of the old HBO show "Tales From The Crypt"...I forgot how good this show was. Each episode features at least a couple of decent recognizable actors and has a good mix of gore and humor (and nudity!) I cruised through 5 episodes in one sitting. The crypt keeper gets on my nerves after a while with his terrible puns.

6.) Congrats to the Cardinals for making the Super Bowl and hats off to Kurt Warner. I'm shocked that there's been no mention of wacky Jesus loving wife but I'm sure it will come out over the next two weeks.

Tid Bits

No specific topic today. Just some rambling thoughts...

1.) Was watching a 1982 Van Halen concert the other day. It reminded me of how confused I was around 1985 when they would show Van Halen videos with David Lee Roth like "Jump" and "Hot For Teacher" along with David Lee Roth solo videos like "Yankee Rose", "Living In Paradise", and the "I Ain't Got Nobody" aka the "Booosey Booosey Bop, diddy bop" song which sounded EXACTLY like Van Halen songs. I was only seven at the time but it blew my mind to try and find out what was going on and how David Lee Roth could be in two different named bands where one was named after guys in the other band. It still sort of confuses me.

2.) Embarrassingly enough, around that age, I thought you had to be quiet while you were watching golf on TV because I believed the players could hear you through the TV. A lot of things make little sense to you when you're 5-8 years old.

3.) The Police play their last ever concert next week at MSG. I have to admit, as awesome as their reunion is and as nice as their reunion tour started off, it has completely become a cash in experience for them. They only play for 90 minutes, play only 13 songs before a 5 song encore, and the ticket prices are insane. I saw Pearl Jam, Genesis, and Rush play for 3 hours for half the cost.

4.) Although I'm not a huge Red Sox fan, it was interesting to see Manny Ramirez be traded to the Dodgers. The Red Sox definitely lost some of their nationwide appeal as he and David Ortiz were the face of that team.

5.) Caught 10 minutes of an episode of "Clarissa The Teenage Witch" this morning while getting ready for work. It featured a random cast of people. Besides Clarissa herself was the actress who played Punky Brewster, the guy who played both DJ Tanner's boyfriend in "Full House and Blossom's boyfriend in "Blossom", and washed up comedian Caroline Rhea. Its on Fox Family every morning from 8-9am on the ABC Family channel followed by Step By Step. I might have to start DVRing these shows.

6.) Top 3 TV Uncles:

a.) Uncle Joey from Full House (can't stand his Popeye impression though)

b.) Uncle Jesse from Dukes of Hazard (the actor's name was awesome too...Denver Pyle. I'd love to name my kid "Denver"...or even better a Long Island town like "Quogue").

c. Uncle Ned from Family Ties (played by Tom Hanks, he was my first exposure to alcoholism when he slapped Alex Keaton in the face and drank pure vanilla extract...this was a family show too).

That's all for now. I'm off on vacation next week heading up to the good old North Country of the 1000 Islands. They're a little behind the times up there as there is no internet access much less paved roads in some areas. I'll try and put together a post towards the middle of the week but we'll see what happens. Otherwise, we'll be back to our normal schedule the week of August 11th. Let me know if there are any topics you'd like me to discuss...I appreciate any feedback positive or negative.

Tid Bits

Some quickies for today:

1.) Went to see Rush last night in concert. Although I only knew two of their songs, they put on a great three hour show that flew by. Jones Beach is a great place to see a concert too. Rush charges $70 for a three hour show...the Police charge $140 for a 90 minute show.

2.) Was in Atlantic City this past weekend. If you ever go there do NOT stay at the Tropicana hotel. Although, the food and restaurants are good, and the casino is big and clean, the hotel part of it is terrible. The bed spreads looked like they were from 1970's and thin as a black garbage bag. The air conditioning was sketchy, the elevators were slow, and I was better washing myself with a garden hose than the pressure coming out of the shower head. To make matters worse, after being out of the room for 6 hours playing golf on Saturday, we come back to the room to find it open. Apparently the cleaning staff forgot to close the door. You've been warned.

3.) The All Star Game is tonight and even better, its at Yankee Stadium. If its anything like the one from Boston in 1999, the pregame should be worth watching. My prediction is that Yogi Berra will get the loudest applause (assuming they are going to bring out some of the older Yankees) and that Fox will cut to the crowd for reaction shots at least 200 times throughout the entire broadcast. For what its worth, listen to the Yankee PA announcer Bob Shepard because it will one of the last seasons you'll see him. He's around 93 years old.

In any event go National League...2008 World Series at Shea Stadium!!!