Oscars

Yesterday I was fortunate enough to attend a 'special event' put on by AMC Theaters. They showed all of the movies nominated for 'best picture' in one marathon session beginning at 11:00 and ending at 23:30. It was $30 for all 5 movies and unlimited Coke and popcorn - a pretty good deal if you can stand the marathon. So, here's a quick review of all the movies we saw - in Top 5 format.

5 - Letters from Iwo Jima - Grade: F
I could give a s*** less how those f****** nips FEEL about shooting US Marines. I felt physically ill at points during this movie and actually wanted to walk out. I can see now why I'd never heard of this movie and also why it is nominated for an oscar. I don't buy the 'showing both sides' argument for this movie - this movie is an advocacy for the Japanese cause in WWII. Puke!

4 - The Queen - Grade: B-
Helen Mirren. It's pretty hard for me to get interested in a movie about the eccentricities of the British monarchy in 1997 - which is exactly what that movie is about. Michael Sheen did an excellent job playing Tony Blair.

3 - Babel - Grade: B-
Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett. It was pretty hard to follow and to understand why so much attention was paid to things that has so little to do with the story. It also had a little too much America bashing - even for a hollywood movie.

2 - Little Miss Sunshine - Grade: A-
Steve Carell, Greg Kinnear, Alan Arkin. I was impressed by originality of this movie, although I was really distracted by the touchy-feely 'Huckabee-ness' of the characters. Alan Arkin stole the show even though he was only in half of the movie.

1 - The Departed - Grade: A
Matt Damon, Leo DiCaprio, Mark Walhberg and Jack Nicholson - enough said. This Martin Scorsese joint was exactly that, with trademark blood, gore, and shocking moments. The only complaint I had about this movie was the amount of gunshot wounds to the head - even I was kinda grossed out towards the end.

The award goes to 'The Departed'. It's a classic Scorsese mobster movie with a great cast. I guarantee it will leave you shocked and amazed.

Busy

As anybody who reads this blog can tell, I haven't been posting as often as I used to. I guess it's because I don't seem to have any extra time now. I'm very busy at work, so I don't have time to do any posting there. I only have a few minutes now, so I thought I'd put up a little post just to let everybody know I haven't given up. I've recently spent a lot of my time doing work on these two sites
MLLFPC.com
MoKanTitle.com

Here's a quote from one of the cut scenes on Call of Duty, it sums up my feeling about what's been going on in congress lately;

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his personal safety, is a miserable creature, and has no chance of being free unless made or kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
-John Stuart Mill

Kickin' A

Played softball this weekend, it's good to be back in the saddle again.

I always say that tennis is my most loved sport, but baseball was my first love. This incarnation of old and slow baseball - called softball - has really taken my fancy in the last few years. I'm really excited to get the season started, especially with the way the team did on Saturday.

I'm proud to announce that Ed's Lawn Service Softball has already become victorious in our first attempt this year. We went 4 and 1 last Saturday, outscoring our opponents 74 to 46. The tournament was rather small with only 6 teams entered, but it was still a legitimate win because the teams that participated were the serious enough about playing to play in February when it was below freezing.

I did really well. I hit 3 home runs and drove in 14 RBI's. I played fairly well at second base with only a couple balls getting past me. The rest of the team played really well considering less than half of the team were returning players. Our success in this tournament is very reassuring for our hopes to take State and beyond this year.

Our team has a blog too - Ed's Lawn Softball