Random Thoughts

- I was at the gym a little earlier today and there was a girl on the treadmill in her fancy, stupid, bug-eye glasses that are supposed to fashionable. Oh yeah, she was talking on her cell the whole time and looked like she spent an hour on her hair before she came. Stupid....

- There is a pizza chain that is going to open right by my house next week called Pizza Schmizza. The menu is somewhat out of the ordinary. Check it out! I am excited.

- I now have an HD tv in my living room AND bedroom. I am spoiled....

- Is it wrong that I won another tournament in my video game clan and I am super excited about that?

- It is true what they say about time going faster the older you get. I am pretty sure it was just New Years the other day...

- This goal from Christiano Ronaldo yesterday is just beautiful. That's my boy! Well, he is really Jessica's because she has a major crush on him, but still, it's my team. Mrvideoguy is going to lose our $50 bet...

Evil E's Saturday Scavenger Hunt #12

Yeah, it is Monday and not Saturday, but I have had a lot going on. January has been a hellish month and the 10 or so posts this month proves that. All last week I was sick and didn't feel like posting at all. Only movies could get me to post last week. So with the word of the week being "sweet", here ya go....

First, here is picture of maybe the sweetest person I know, GG. This is Jessica's great grandma and she is 101 years old. Unfortunately, after 98 or so years of great health, she has started to go downhill the last few years. This past weekend, we thought we were going to lose her and even now, we are guessing she doesn't have much left in her. We didn't get to go see her this past weekend because I was sick, but we plan to this coming weekend. Truly, a sweet person. This was Jess and I with her this past Christmas...





I didn't want my "sweet" pictures to be too much of a downer so here are pictures of my "sweet" Marvel statues. I am including these as I just bought a new one - The Incredible Hulk in the last picture!








Finally, I want to welcome my friend, Happyflapjacks, to the blogging world. He is the friend who made my nifty banner above. He just recently started a blog last week and it is off to a great start! Give it a chance, it is quite funny.

My Best Picture Thoughts

So, as a few of you know, Jessica and I make it a point to see all 5 films nominated for Best Picture prior to the Oscars being announced. We've been doing this over 10 years now and have been lucky enough to see some great films we would have otherwise not seen. We also got a chance to see some stinkers, but they balance out. Here is what I think of the 5 nominate films announced yesterday.

Atonement - From what I can tell, it is a love story set in non-modern times. This just seems to have dud written all over it. I am not oppossed to all love stories nor period pieces, but this just does not look like something I want to see. I a sure it will have some substance to it and some other story, but for now, I am not looking forward to this. Excitement level - 1 out of 10.

Juno - I have yet to hear a bad thing about this movie. From what I have heard, the characters are kind of kooky in a Napolean kind of way, just better and with a better script. With all the buzz going in, I just hope I am not dissapointed. Excitement level - 8 out of 10

Micheal Clayton - From what I can tell, it is a lawyer drama. I am sure there it is full of backstabbings, backroom deals, etc., etc. Looks like it will be pretty good and it can't go wrong with one my favorite actors in Clooney so I am hoping this turns out ok. Excitement level - 5 out of 10

No Country for Old Men - Read my review in the previous post about this great film. This movie rocks!

There Will Be Blood - I believe this is about the early days of oil tycoons or something similar to that. From what I have heard, Daniel Day Lewis gives the performance of his career and that is saying a lot with the good movies he has done. It seems like it will be a little too long and since Paul Thomas Anderson directed it, I think it will be kind of weird. But, I heard it is good so I am cautiously optomistic. Excitement level - 5 out of 10.

That is, if there IS an Oscar Show. The writer's strike might kill this show which would be devastating, but I fully support the writers as I feel that they are entitled to those residuals that they deserve. I don't know the full details, but I believe from the details I have heard, they are in the right and deserve what they should be getting. We'll see....

Movie Review Time

It has been about 2 months since I have done some movie reviews of movies I am seeing for the 1st time so here are the 7 movies I have seen recently. I don't think I am missing any...


This is the sequel to the surprisingly good 28 Days later. This is basically a zombie movie, although, fans of the film will say they aren't zombies as they are just people infected with the rage virus. Let's just call them zombie like as they are people infected that want to eat other humans. This was a worthy sequel to the original. It had more action than the slower paced original which I know has divided fans of the original. I myself liked it. I love "zombie" films and this one did not disappoint. 7 out of 10










This is a remake of the 80 version with Rutger Hauer and C. Thomas Howell. Everyone I have talked to HATED this new version. I personally liked it. It was simple and to the point - hitchhiker terrorizes couple who picked him up. It was a pretty good thriller and kept my interest for 90 minutes. That was good enough for me. 6.5 out of 10












I was excited about this movie, but hesitant going in because I am a HUGE fan of the book. It is one of my all time favorite books and I didn't want them messing up the story. Well, the movie ended up almost nothing like the book, but I still loved the movie. It was a very suspenseful movie that had some very emotional parts. I thought Will Smith did an excellent job for a guy basically only being able to interact with dog the whole movie. The only drawback was that I thought the CGI was subpar for what is capable today. What are you going to do? 9 out of 10.










I had heard a number of good things about this movie and they were right. This was a very good movie. I liked it because it also opened my eyes to the illegal diamond trade that goes on. I had no idea. Djimon Hounsou put on another outstanding performance(when doesn't he?) and Leo was solid again and really is becoming one of my favorite actors, something I never thought I would say after the Titanic hysteria. This had lots of action, a great storyline, and looked visually beautiful. 8 out of 10.









Another one of those comedies that everyone talks about and you force yourself to watch. I knew it was going to be either really bad or pretty good. It ended up on the pretty good scale. It wasn't as great or as funny as people say, but it was good and enjoyable. It was quite vulgar and shouldn't be watched by those who are easily offended by vulgarity/sex talk/etc. It had some very funny moments, but nothing that made me really burst out laughing. Just a steady shot of chuckles. Still, overall, a pretty funny film that you should watch if you have been a fan of the other recent Apatow films. 6.5 out of 10










The worst of this bunch. Basically, is was a very forgetable horror movie that was made simply to capitalize on the success of Saw and Hostel. This basic premise is a bunch of good looking young kids go on vacation(Brazil? Can't remember)and fall victim to a place where they capture you and harvest your organs for the illegal organ black market. Wasn't that good.... 4 out of 10










One of the best films I have ever seen. No, really, this movie is outstanding! I was first excited for this film way back simply because it was a Cohen Brothers film and they never seem to do me wrong. I LOVE their movies. Then it starts getting buzz and I become more excited. I finally got to see it this weekend and I was not disappointed. I really don't want to give too much of the story away, but it has to do with drug money, a hitman, and a small town sheriff among other things. It is funny because even though it is more of a drama, a departure from most Cohen Brothers films, there are comedic elements in it that are SO Cohen Brothers. If you enjoy their films, you will get what I mean. This movie can't come with a higher recommendation! It is a nonstop story and has some of the most tense scenes I have ever seen on film. There are 2 slow scenes near the end, but after watching the movie and thinking about them, they are very essesntial to the point of the story. Go see this movie! 10 out of 10.


Tommorow I will give you my opinions on the films that were nominated this morning for Best Picture.

I haven't taken any pictures in the last few weeks so I plan on getting back on the Scavenger Hunt thing this weekend as well!

Fuck Oprah!

God I hate Oprah! I hate her holier than thou persona. I hate her self promoting ass. Basically, I hate every thing about her. Some news I just read makes me hate her even more. Apparently, Oprah has just signed a deal with the Discovery Channel so that next year, Discovery Health Channel, a GREAT channel with a ton of great shows, will turn into the OWN or the Oprah Winfrey Network! I can only imagine what she is going to do the great lineup that the channel already has. I can't see the channel keeping the same format that it already has. It will probably be more like the Oxygen Network, a horrible channel on its own. This is horrible news...

Weird

Tom Cruise is weird. This is a video of him. The last 10 seconds are the scariest I think...

This and That....

Pretty good weekend if I say so myself. It started off early Saturday morning watching two soccer games back to back and not only did Jess not give me any grief for it, but she actually watched them with me! It doesn't hurt that my favorite team, Manchester United, has a guy that she has a huge crush on! To top it all off, Man U won 6-0, scoring 6 goals in the second half and moving them into 1st in the English Premier League.

Saturday night was the first poker night of the season and after winning the championship last year for the 3rd straight year, I wanted to get off to a good start. I didn't end up winning, but I did finish a solid third, getting my money back and picking up some good points. Lasting that long kept me from playing Rock Band all night with my friends in the living room, but you do what you have to...

Sunday was great because the Cowboys lost. Enough said....

With all the craziness of Christmas, work, and other issues, I completely missed an important even in December. December 9th was the 3rd anniversary of this blog. Thanks for making it what it is.

Finally, if you read the last post about the format war, you'll appreciate this video. I LOVE it!

Hectic

The title pretty much describes how the week has gone. The end result - no blogging or visiting of blogs. But, things should be slow from here on out for a couple of weeks. The hectic time did bring me a new client though so that is nice. Our Directv is back too. It wasn't going to be fixed until next week, but I called a different company to do it and they were able to come yesterday; almost a week sooner. It was killing me because I need to have it on. Even when there isn't really anything on, I still need it on for the noise. I hate silence. Jess and I kept ourselves entertained by playing video games and watching movies.

It has been an exciting week for me on the technology front. This past weekend, Warner Bros studios dumped their support for HD DVD. That is great news for a guy like me who supports Bluray. What am I talking about? Basically, just like their are Hi-Def TVs, there are now Hi-Def DVDs. Unfortunately, there are two different kinds of Hi-Def discs like there was VHS and Beta. Bluray is the brain child of Sony while HD DVD is the product of Toshiba. What is the problem with 2 formats? The seven major movie studios have basically chosen sides of who they are supporting and are only releasing their movies on the the one format. For instance, I would love to own a Hi Def version of Transformers, but it is a Paramount movie and they are HD DVD exclusive and I am a Bluray guy.

As of last week, 4 studios were Bluray exclusive and 2 were HD DVD exclusive with Warner Bros being the only company that supports both. Well, last Friday, Warner Bros announced they were going Bluray exclusive, giving them 5 of the 7 major studios. Why couldn't they do both. Well, DVD sales were down almost 4% last year. One of the main reasons - people are confused about this whole DVD/HD DVD/Bluray thing. People are holding off on buying because they know a new format is coming and are holding off buying anything until a clear winner emerges. Yeah, the current economy hurts too, but this a factor. Warner, and I, believe that the sooner one format clearly is declared a winner and the other format is dead, the sooner people will start buying again. They went with the company on top. So now, Bluray has Warner, Fox, MGM, Sony, and Disney. HD DVD has Universal and Paramount. There are a few other companies on both sides, but these are the heavy hitters and most important to the war. I think it is only a matter of months before the holdouts switch too. Trust me, if you don't own or haven't seen a Bluray movie in stunning 1080p, you are missing out. It is beautiful! So support Bluray and choose wisely......Harrison has his eye on you!!!!

2 weeks?!?!

Boy have we been hit hard with storms here in Sacramento. Truthfully, they are all over the state, but Friday was the worst I had seen it in a while. I was afraid to even turn on the computer. Sorry blogging friends. I should be more consistant with blogging this week anyways as last week was hectic in returning from vacation. Actually, this week will be pretty bad too, but we'll see how it goes.

Oh yeah, back to the storm. The winds on Friday were around 70 mph which they said were the strongest since the 1950s! We had a teeny crack in one of our bedroom windows, but the wind, it broke. Not shattered and it is still intact, but it needs to be replaced. Also, our satellite got out of whack and we lost our signal. I called Directv and because I had not turned on the tv all day, we were way late. When are they coming to fix it? January 16th! Almost 2 weeks without tv. Hell indeed....

Thanks to all who participated in the trivia question. No correct answers, but it was a tough one. The correct answers - Sophia Loren and Charlize Theron.

Welcome to the new people who have visited my blog recently. I'll promise to visit your blogs this week.

Have a good week everyone.

Trivia Thursday #15

While looking for trivia for today, I found one question that I thought deserved its own post because of how interesting it is. So, only one question today.

What two actresses posed in Playboy and then went on to later to win Best Actress at the Academy Awards?

Evil E's Saturday Scavenger Hunt

Well, I am back and we had a wonderful time in Disneyland. The place was PACKED though. In fact, I know for a fact on Thursday, by 1PM, they stopped selling tickets because they were too full. Now, I was in a wheelchair because of my torn calf muscle, which is normally cool because you get on most rides right away, but when it is that crowded, it can be frustrating because nobody moves for your chair. Oh well, it was fun. As the word for the week was "happy", here are some pics of us in the "Happiest Place on Earth." They are a little blurry because I copied them off Jessica's myspace page as she got them off the camera already and I don't feel like uploading them again!


The best ride out of both parks!




The electrical parade is always pretty!



Aww......




The castle at night decorated for Christmas.



The Golden Gate replica



Great time! Biting my lip as usual...



I am late in doing it, but I need to name someone. I don't know who has done it twice and who hasn't, so I am just going to name a random person. Churlita, the ball is in your court! I'll start revisiting all your blogs tomorrow(Wednesday). I hope everyone had a great Christmas and a safe New Year.

Out of town and this week's word

Well, I am out of town and I wanted to just write a quick message to let you all know I won't be on for a while. Good thing I checked though, because it looks like I have been tagged for this week's word. Let's go with "happy."

Ok, other than that, that is it for me for about a week. I am out of town doing Christmas things and then I am off to Disneyland. Have a safe holidays everyone and I will see you on Sunday....

Belated gift

I am such a bad blogger friend. Because of an oversight, I accidentally left Tara out of my gift giving. I got the gift and everything, but when it came to posting it, it got left in the folder. I feel bad because she is one of the few people who comment on a consist ant basis. So again, sorry Tara, here is your gift...

I got her this book as she has done some guided tours in haunted places. Since she seems to enjoy it, I figured she needed a book to take it to the next level.





So, instead of a Frightful Dilemma question, here is a pondering question in honor of my forgetfulness - have you ever done something bad to another blogger on accident that you felt bad about? Or heck, did you do something on purpose to another blogger that you felt bad about?

Time For Presents

It is time for my second annual gift giving post where I give gifts to my fellow bloggers. Here ya go everyone....

First, for Sushi. Her stories of being a waitress crack me up. Sure, she probably won't be doing this much longer as she just graduated college, but until she starts her new career, here is a funny t-shirt I felt she would appreciate!




For Val, my fellow comic lover, an awesome statue of her favorite character - Rogue!



For Mrs. Big Hairy Woman - Well, she is from Canada and is proud of it, so why not a shirt for all to see!



For Night Panther, the awesome photographer - this novelty shirt cracked me up when I saw it so I figured it would be perfect for him.



For Rhys, my fellow blogger from across the pond - I got him a Wii shirt (bunch of shirts this year) as he has often declared his live for this great video game system.



I got Sebastian, a fellow blogger who has been M.I.A with a sickness a get well package. Hope to see you back blogging soon buddy.



I figured Sonja, who reads more than anyone I know, could use a comfortable pillow to use when she is reading in bed. Looks pretty comfy to me!



Jerry, the ultimate San Diego sports fan, gets a pack of Chargers shirts. Look how you can mix and match them!



Jose gets the most expensive gift on the list. This is the ultimate karaoke machine with video, speakers, etc. It truly is a unique and awesome machine and he can practice his love of singing whenever he wants.



Laura works in a library so I found the librarian action figure! It comes with all these props and even makes a sshhh sound when you press a button!



Michelle is quite the crafty person so this book of scrapbooking ideas seems right up her alley!



Sharon is a big fan of birds and her bird Mooky is adorable. Hopefully she likes this Macaw calendar.



I had a hard time deciding what to get Alien as there were a ton of cool things to choose from. I chose this alien autopsy game which works very much like the game, Operation.



Churlita got a pretty expensive gift too. As she is a big fan of Guitar Hero, I figured she would like Rock Band. It is a blast!



My cousins haven't blogged for a while as I know they have been bust with life/jobs/etc, but since they were children of the 80s(and late 70s), I figured they would love this box set of 80s songs. I am sure it is like totally rad!



If you have ever been to Dmarks site, this shirt I found needs ZERO explanation. I will leave it at that!



Evil E does a great themed post on Tuesdays where he posts pictures of graffiti he sees around town. This book of graffiti of the world should be interesting to him I would think!



And there you have it! Hope everyone enjoyed their gifts!

When it counts...

As I have been talking about on my blog, I have been struggling at poker lately. In fact, I hadn't won a tournament in over 5 months! Losing time after time like that is not something I am used to. We play every 2 weeks at my house and have a fairly big game (10-16 players each game). Each game is its own seperate tournament, but we also put in some extra money for the player of the year tournament and earn points each game based on how we do. These points earn us chips for the player of the year tournament. Somehow, I have been able to win the player of the year the last 2 years. Going into this year's player of the year tournament though, I was not big on confidence based on the current losing streak.

Somehow, I was able to pull out the victory on Saturday. With 16 of us playing, I knew it would take nothing short of a miracle to win. I thought about changing the way I had been playing because what I was doing obviously hadn't worked for the last 5 months. It worked the previous 2 years, but the well had run dry. After thinking about it though, I remembered that my losing streak was due more to the extremely bad luck I had been getting and not the poor play. I decided to stick it out and play the same way.

A couple of people took huge chips leads in the tournament, but I played my game and never really wavered far from the amount of chips I started with. Suddenly, about 4 hours after we started, it was down to just me and my opponent. Even then, my back was up against the wall as he had around 13,000 chips to my 2,000. I didn't panic though, and about 15 minutes later, I was able to take the lead and eventually the win. I won almost $300 for 1st place, but it really wasn't about the money at all. What made me happy is that after struggling for so long, I was able to still rise to the occasion when the championship was on the line. I was able to earn player of the year for the third year in a row. I was able to prove to myself and everyone else that I can play. This third championship is extra sweet!

Evil E's Saturday Scavenger Hunt #10

I am making a habit of doing these on Sunday! This week's word comes courtesy of Alien who picked the word "card." Here is what I came up with...


This first one is a picture of Leia reading her birthday card on Friday. Such a smart girl...




Every year, we put the Christmas cards we get on the front door. Here is what we have received so far...




Here is a closeup of the card we got from Rhys. How cool is this...he made buttons for his blog and included them in his Christmas cards! That is bloody brilliant!



Here is the most impotant of the pictures. This was last night on my card table as I became the champion of my poker league for the third year in a row. Much more on this story next post...



I haven't looked to see what it is the word for this week, but I will let you know soon.

Basically one week 'til Christmas. I am going to be on vacation the whole week of Christmas so I will make sure to make good use of my blogging time this week> Here is the schedule...

Tuesday - Poker tournament story...

Wednesday - Like I did last year, I will virtually hand out gifts to all my fellow bloggers. Be sure to stop by to see what you are getting! Everyone, even those who haven't commented on here in a long while, will get a gift so don't miss it.

Friday - Frightful Delimma Friday and Misc. stuff

Saturday - Saturday Scavenger Hunt

Have a good week everyone...

Frightful Dilemma Friday #13

Happy Friday! As you can see, I made a few changes to my layout. Most of them are minor, but improvements nonetheless; but the main change is my custom banner I have above. This was made by one of the guys in my video game clan, Happyflapjacks. We were talking one day and he mentioned he used to do web design and one thing led to another and resulted in the banner above. I LOVE it. Jess and I had dinner with him the other night as he was in town for a business trip. Nice to meet someone you have only talked to on your blue tooth while blowing up the opposition! OTD for life!

I'm glad everyone liked the pics I took. Since it was Wordless Wednesday, I couldn't tell you that I took those in downtown Sacramento the other day. There are a lot of old houses there and since I had my camera to take pictures of Jessica's mismatched shoes, I decided to take advantage of the shot opportunities since I was downtown already.


Finally, it is time for Frightful Dilemma Friday again!

Would you rather....

have a digitally blurred face like criminals on tv...

or...

have a range of motion reduced to how a GI Joe action figure can move?

Tomorrow's word is card. Come back to see the pics!

Wordless Wednesday #22

Where does the line start?

The poster for the movie event of 2008 was just released. This, along with movie stills released the last couple of weeks, has me "giddy as a school boy!" This movie can not come fast enough!

Evil E's Saturday Scavenger Hunt #9

This week's word was "light." Being the Christmas season, I knew I could find something to shoot. I had a lot of fun with this one...



First, a picture of our Christmas tree. The light didn't come out quite as sharp or clear as I wanted them and I missed with a few things. Maybe someone with photographic knowledge could let me know. Aperature setting? Shutter Speed setting?



Here is a picture I messed up on when shooting the tree, but I thought it looked cool enough to post...



Here is a Santa statue thingy with lights we have. I thought the stars behind it looked cool on the wall.



This is a light in the parking structure I was in the other day. If you look closely, you can see a spider in the lower right hand corner of the light.



This is what happens when you put on your shoes in the morning WITHOUT light. Jess wore two different colored shoes to work on Friday and I had to save her by bringing the correct shoe.



This is the worst kind of light - a red light!



After I took the red light, I saw that the clouds behind it looked cool so I decided to take a picture of the sunlight and clouds. I think it came out pretty well.




My fellow blogger Night Panther, a GREAT photographer, participated this week so be sure to go look at his great light pictures he took!

I haven't looked at what next week's word is, but I can't wait to see.....