Top 5 Tuesday #19

Soon, it will be one my favorite times of the year - Summer movie season!!! I would say that the Summer movie season officially kicks off this weekend so it is time for my Summer movie preview. I'll start by listing what I think will be the main money getters this Summer and then do my top 5 anticipated ones for me. First, the list of big movies this Summer(These are not all movies I want to see, just a list of everything I think will make some dough).

Iron Man - May 2
Speed Racer - May 9
What Happens in Vegas - May 9
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian - May 16th
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - May 22
Sex and the City - May 30
The Strangers - May 30
Kung Fu Panda - June 6
You Don't Mess with the Zohan - June 6
The Incredible Hulk - June 13
The Happening - June 13
Get Smart - June 20
The Love Guru - June 20
Wall E - June 27
Wanted - June 27
Hancock - July 2
Hellboy II - July 11
The Dark Knight - July 18
Mamma Mia - July 18
X Files 2 - July 25
Step Brothers - July 25
The Mummy 3 - August 1
Pineapple Express - August 8
Tropic Thunder - August 15


Quite a list and certainly, some of these will end up bombing at the box office for one reason or another. So which of these 5 am I most anticipating?

Honorable Mention - Tropic Thunder - This sounds like a pretty funny movie. A bunch of well known actors are recruited to make the most expensive war movie ever made. Once they get to the jungle, the become involved in some war and have ot become soldiers themselves. Starring Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Matthew McConaughey, and Robert Downey, this sounds like it will be fun. The main villain in the film is being kept under wraps and is said that his whole role will be uncredited, but rumors are that his name rhymes with Bomb Bruise.




#5 - The Mummy 3 - It has been a while since the last Mummy movie with Brendan Fraser and it may be too late to bring in the people who liked the other 2, but I liked the other 2 enough to want to go see this movie. The other 2 were just fun adventure movies in the Indiana Jones style so I hope this movie doesn't become a letdown. No trailer yet...




#4 - The Happening - The next M. Night Shymalan movie. Truthfully, I don't know what it is even about yet, but I go watch all his movies and have liked every one so far. That sells it for me.






#3 - Iron Man - I am a big comic guy so this already has me in the seat. But the way Robert Downey Jr. seems to totally nail down the character of Tony Stark is what has me excited. Hopefully, it has a good story to go along with the cool effects.




#2 - Hancock - Will Smith blockbuster released in the Summer. Sounds like a winner to me! The first time I saw the trailer I cracked up and I have been excited for this movie ever since. It looks like it will be really funny!




#1 - Indiana Jones - This is an absolute no brainer. This movie release anticipation ranks right up there with the release of Episode 1 in '99. This is Indiana freakin' Jones! How can you NOT be excited about this?!?! Hopefully, this does not disappoint because I am going in with REALLY high hopes.




What on this list above are you going to see? Any movies you don't recognize you want to know what they are about? Talk to me!

Wordless Wednesday #24

A Great Weekend

I had a great weekend and I feel pretty rejuvenated for the upcoming week. Yes, that means plenty of posts hopefully this coming week. The week started off great with news that Jessica got a new job. As some of you know, but most of you don't, she is/was a nurse working in a ob/gyn office. She liked it, but there were a lot problems. One of the main problems was that it was an office made up entirely of women and that just lead to too much drama. There was one nurse in particular who ALWAYS was a source of headaches as she was always looking to start a fight and got bitchy over the smallest things. Plus, she was lazy as hell and complained when she had to do any work what so ever. Secondly, there is a new doctor there that just seemed to have it out for her - looking over everything Jessica did just to find a mistake and pulling the "I'm a doctor and she should always do what I say no matter what," card. Third, since leaving the hospital setting to go to this job where she was basically just doing education and not doing hands on experience that she loved, she has been somewhat bored. So, for the past few weeks, she has been working one day a week at a pain clinic and last week, they asked her if she would work full time. Friday, they did an informal interview over the phone and like that, she is gone. She gave her one week notice on Friday afternoon. She is so happy and I am delighted for her to get out of that drama zone. It all works out to because since it is the same company, everything transfers over and the only thing different is where she goes now. She is excited because she feels like she is a real nurse again. Exciting stuff!

Saturday started out stressful as Manchester was down the entire game in their league game only to pull out a tie with a couple of minutes left. They should have won, but I will take a tie and now they are up 3 points with 3 games to play. The team right below them awaits them next weekend so they could wrap up the league if they win. They also have their big Champions League game on Wednesday - you know, the tournament I now have a bet on that is up to $75. Big game!

Saturday night, I won my first poker tournament of the year. I haven't been too happy with the way I have been playing and made a conscious effort to change my style of play. Well, it worked. To not only play well, but win after I made some changes felt good.

I have a pretty busy week as I am covering for my parter while she is on vacation for a week, but I get to do it from home which is nice. As it is fairly slow for me at the moment with my work, I should be able to get a lot of stuff done. I need to start with this new laptop and installing my old programs on it. I have yet to install the camera's programs on it so that is why haven't posted any pictures in a couple of weeks. Hopefully, I can participate in this week's scavenger hunt. I have been way behind in those. Have a good week everybody.

Top Five Tuesday #18

Yes, my first Top Five list since forever! I rule!I've been sitting on this one for a while. Don't read if you are easily offended because, well, it is kind of offensive and mean. But you know, sometimes you just have to have a little fun and my mischievous side won out on this one.

Top 5 things that would be fun and evil to do(but I would never do for fear of going to hell!)

#5 - When a bible thumper knocks on the door, say, sorry, and tell them I worship Satan before I close the door. I get tired of the bible thumpers that knock on my door. I am religious man myself and I respect what they do, but to me, they are just another salesman.

#4 - Put an "I Owe You" coupon in the collection plate at church. Again, another religious based one. Trust me, I am religious, but I like to have fun too!

#3 - Pull up to a car stranded on the side of the road and ask the person if they need some help. When they say yes, drive off and yell, "I'm really sorry to hear that," and drive off. Bonus points if the person is elderly.

#2 - When you are at a stop sign or first in line at a red light, honk at any pedestrian as they cross the street right in front of you. Bonus points again for the elderly or getting a kid to fall off his bike.

#1 - Sell girl scout cookies in front of the gym or a Weight Watchers meeting. This is the ultimate in mean. It is even meaner for someone overweight like me to come up with it. But hey, it is all in fun. I actually came up with this one when I was at the gym one day and I was working out on the machine facing the street. A kid walked by eating candy. A post was born.

Anything evil I missed out on that should be added to the list?

Random bits of information

A little bit of this and that. This week was an exciting week for soccer and it keeps getting better. As a little background, in Europe, there is a championship every year to determine the best club team in the continent in soccer. It is kind of complicated, but each country in Europe gets a certain number of teams that can enter the tournament. They have group stages, knockout stages, etc. A few months ago, Rich and I made a bet on who's team would make it farther in the tournament. My team is of course, Manchester United. His team is Liverpool. We started out as a $20 bet. Pretty simple and standard. Our teams kept advancing and last week was the quarterfinals. Our bet had increased all the way up to $50. This past week, both of our teams advanced to the semi finals. Our bet has now increased to $75 and if we should both advance to the finals, we have a $100 bet on the game. After all the trash talking we have done over the last couple of months, it is amazing that we are only a couple of weeks away from possibly both being the finals. What a game that would end up being to watch with each other!


One of the funniest things I had ever heard happened at a party last weekend. I have a friend, PJ, who is nearly deaf. I have another friend, Corey, who likes to drink a lot. Last weekend at a party, Corey introduced PJ to another party goer. He said in his drunken slur, "This is my friend PJ. YOU HAVE TO TALK REALLY LOUD!!!" Funniest, inappropriate thing I had heard in a while.

I am away right now in the Bay Area for Jessica's mom's 50th birthday. Should be a blast tomorrow!

I bought a new laptop yesterday. For once, I bought an electronic gadget and I wasn't super excited for it. Truth is my old laptop has had issues with the power cord and plugging it in for a long time now. I have sent it away before, but it is doing the same shit again and I am done pouring money into it. It is pretty "sharp" looking so I will get some pictures of it probably on Monday when I return.

Have a good weekend everyone!

The 5 Things That Pissed Me Off Last Week #15

I was pretty angry last week, and yet, I still think I had a pretty good week. Go figure!

#5 - Last week I was able to blog a total of ONE time, a pretty short one at that. Additionally, I didn't get to visit any other blogs. For a few days last week, I looked my blogging for the year and thought that it might be time to shut the blog down. It has been going strong for three years. In the end though, I couldn't pull the trigger and I am back blogging.

#4 - Friday morning, I woke up with a really sore back. I could barely move. Thankfully, I was able to walk it off by midday.

#3 - Sunday morning, Manchester had the opportunity to put a good foothold on their lead in the Premiership. Instead, they ended up tying 2-2 to a bad team. Now, they only have a three point lead with a small amount of games left. This includes a big game against Arsenal on Sunday. It is going to go down to the wire...

#2 - Insurance companies suck! In case you don't know what I do, I own a medical billing business. I bill insurance companies. But almost daily, I have to get on the phone with an insurance company and fix something they screwed up or neglected to tell me. They look for any reason to deny a claim. Medicare, who I am convinced is the Devil, is the absolute worst out of all of them. They are absolute bastards! A couple of months ago, they denied tons of claims I sent in because they out of the blue instituted a new policy(which I found out was only made known on their web site) which required the therapist's 9 digit zip code instead of the normal 5 digit zip code. Again, the only way I would have found this out is if I had read it on their web site. Horrible...

#1 - Directv is killing me lately. I have been a customer for years and years, but over the last 2 months, they have been driving me mad. They keep screwing up my bill, forgetting to tell me things, promising things that never happen, etc, etc. I have spent so many hours on the phone correcting things they have messed up on and I am done with it. Sure, they keep compensating me with credits and free stuff, but I just want to not have to call them anymore. I am sick of it. Stop wasting my time!

Respecting a Legend

I don't really watch wrestling anymore, but I kind of keep track of what is going on. Sunday night was the final match for a legend in the "sport." Ric Flair, 59 years old, finally retied from pro wrestling. I didn't get to see his last match as I wasn't going to pay the money for the PPV, but I did get to watch his farewell speech and tribute from Monday night on YouTube this morning. It was a very emotional event. He is easily in the top 2 of most important people in wrestling history along with Hulk Hogan. I was never a huge Flair fan, but I respected him for his longetivity and importance to wrestling. I am sure he will still show up on tv in some capacity on the WWE, but as far as the ring goes, he is done. 26 years of wrestling on his 59 year old body had to have taken a toll. Good luck Ric and congratulations.

Manuel on Movies #1

I do reviews all the time, and I often have a hard time coming up with a title for the posts so I am going to start calling all of them the same thing from now on. I know I have done a bunch of them, but I'll start from scratch at #1. It has been over a month since my last review post so I have a bunch for you. I'll start off with the final 2 films I had to see that were nominated for Best Picture before the Oscars.

Atonement - I wasn't looking forward to this at all, but I heard from a couple of people it was decent so I tried to go in with an open mind. Well, that's all it was, decent. About a third of the way through or so, I felt the film had a lot of potential after a big event in the film, but it really didn't go the direction I expected/wanted. In the end, it didn't have the big payoff I wanted and it just kind of died out. 5.5 out of 10.












Michael Clayton - This was actually a pretty decent movie. I don't know why it was nominated for Best Picture though. I mean, it was really no different or better than a good John Grisham adaptation. George Clooney plays a guy who works in a law firm as a fixer and the story revolves around a pretty high end case for the firm. Clooney was awesome in the film and it had some really powerful scenes, but I didn't think it was Oscar quality. Oh well, I still enjoyed it. 7 out of 10










Ratatouille - This was a really cute film, but what else do you expect from Pixar? Not much needs to be said as I am sure you all know it is about a cooking rat. Just know, if you have been a fan of their past films, you won't be disappointed with this one and it comes highly recommended. 8.5 out of 10












The Number 23 - Jim Carrey plays a man who becomes obsessed with the number 23 after reading a book and then seeing it pop up everywhere in his life. This is a very dark film and Carrey puts in another underappreciated performance as a man going crazy. It has a few twists and turns and is definitely not for the average movie goer. It is simply not straight forward like that and is almost David Lynch like. Not bad at all. 7 out of 10










- The King of Kong - A hidden gem that came out of nowhere. This is a documentary about a man trying to beat the world record for Donkey Kong. Simple enough, right? Truthfully though, this film was so much deeper than that and it is amazing to see all the politics that go into the video game record world. By the end of the film, you are cheering for some and having such hatred for others on par with the greatest of movies. The fact that it is documentary makes it that much more impressive. After I saw this movie, I raved to Jessica about it and told her she had to watch it with me. Thankfully, but not surprisingly, she had the same feelings about the movie. Simply put, I can not recommend this film any higher. Don't worry if you don't like/play video games. The documentary transcends that and it really is about good vs evil. You must watch this film. 9.5 out of 10.

Evil E's Saturday Scavenger Hunt #15

WHAT IS THIS?!?!?! I am posting my pictures on Saturday? I figured since I came up with the word this week, I better get mine oout on the actual day, plus, I need to name someone. So here are my "perfect" pictures...



The "perfect" pair




Jess getting a "perfect" on Rock Band on Hard. She rocks!



I had a new perfect picture of my dogs from the other night, but it looks like it accidently got deleted. I am pissed. What can you do though...

I haven't done these pics for the last few weeks so I forget who has picked the words lately. So, I apologize if you haven't been picked in a while and I am picking someone who has been picked recently. I pick DMarks to choose our next word. Have fun, man.....

Pier 39 Pictures

As I said last post, last Friday, Jess and I took a friend of ours to San Francisco, or more specifically, Pier 39. There is always good shopping there and it also gives us a chance to eat at the wonderful Bubba Gumps. Here are some of the pictures I took....

Alcatraz across the way





Golden Gate Bridge





The Sea Lions of Pier 39




This is the life




Is that even comfortable?




Cooling off




Just a bird




My Dream Girl

Sorry, sorry

So I have been tagged to do the word of the week for the Scavenger Hunt by Alien. Sorry, I have been out of it for a week. Thursday morning, a friend of mine flew into town and he just left on yesterday so that explains my lack of blogging in that time frame. I would have blogged last night, but I had some other friends over for dinner. That is a totally different story for later in the week. I even had intentions to post some "Hot" pictures for the scavenger hunt. Oh well. I did get some great pics from our trip to San Francisco on Friday. As our friend had never been to the west coast, we figured San Francisco would be a great place to take him. I'll post those probably tomorrow.

But, since I know you are all eagerly awaiting the word of the week and I only have a short amount of time to post at the moment, I give you the word of the week.......

"Perfect"

Have fun with that one and come back tomorrow for the San Fran pics...

Lost Boys 2!!!

One of my all-time favorite movies is Lost Boys. When I heard they were finally filming the "sequel" a while back, I got really excited. Sure, I knew it would never top the original, but when you are so starved for something to follow up that great film, almost anything will do. The trailer for this film arrived today. Yes, it looks cheesy and like any other teenage PG 13 horror film that has come out in the last few years, but I will see it anyways. It could get bad reviews and I would still see it. Hell, you know it is going to be bad because it is going straight to video. But you know what, who cares. It's Lost Boys 2....

• MTV
• Music Videos
• MTV Shows
• Entertainment News

The new backyard

As I previously mentioned, we had our backyard worked on in the past couple of weeks. Jess and I are NOT yardwork people and our backyard had essentially turned into a pile of weeds that we avoided like the Plague or country music. We spent no time out there because we had no reason to. Well, we hired a landscape company to make our backyard very low maintance and somewhere where we would want to hang out. This is what they came up with...

Yup, I am back

I have returned. So what happened? I just a lot of shit going on that pissed me off all at once. Seriously, I had about a years worth of frustration with people in just under a day and a half on Monday and Tuesday. By Tuesday afternoon, I was mentally done. I was emotionally drained and rather than try to pretend to be all jubilant on my blog or spend 3 hourds typing it all out, I decided to take a break. I think the break did me some good. It allowed me not to think of all the crap, rejuvenated me to write, and got me ready for the following week. So I am back and I can't wait to visit all your blogs this evening after I am done working. Tara, I will sending that email out to you today or tomorrow to get your prize out to you. And tomorrow, I will be happy to unveil the pictures of our new backyard! Look for it and thanks for the kind words to those of you who wished me well in my last post. You guys rock....

Fucking Pissed....

Beyond mad right now. Not you, don't worry. Too irate to write and just need some time off. Will be back next Monday....

Contest to end all contests is over

Well, it is now past the Sunday evening deadline for my contest and I have to say, it was not a big success. I am very disappointed to report that I had a grand total of TWO people enter it. One was my former co-blogger Mrvideoguy and the 2nd was your winner, Tara. Tara got 6 out of 10 right which qualifies her for the prize. Tara, I'll be emailing you back for your address to send you your prize. Please visit her blog and give her a congrats. I actually wasn't too surprised at the number of entrants as my readership seems to be going down. What are you going to do...

Since Tara was the winner, I'll pimp her site out even more. Today is Keyser Soze appreciation day on her blog. I sure hope everyone knows who Keyser Soze is, but if you don't, here is a great intro course from the spectacular film, The Usual Suspects.



Really, is there anyone who hasn't seen this film? It really is one of the best of all time in my opinion. The ending? Brilliant. If you haven't seen it, see it now and appreciate the greatness of Keyser Soze.

Got a few things planned this week.

Tuesday - My Saturday Scavenger Hunt pics
Wednesday - Movie reviews
Thursday - Backyard update
Friday - Frightful Dilemma Friday.

Have a good week and again, thanks and congrats Tara!

Trivia Thursday #17

Here ya go. Winner gets a used copy of Con Air on DVD(if they want it). All answers must be emailed to me at pokermanuel@hotmail.com. DO NOT POST ANSWERS HERE! Name the movie each screen grab come from. The person that gets the most correct will be the winner. In the event of a tie, the person who emailed it to me first will be the winner. To make it somewhat hard, you need to get a minimum of five correct to win. If no winner, the prize will be rolled over to a contest next week. This contest will end Sunday at 5pm PST/8PM EST. Remember, DO NOT POST ANSWERS HERE! This contest is open to my regular readers/posters. If you have never commented here, sorry...
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Wordless Wednesday #23

Be sure to read the post below on Thursday's contest.

Update on the old lady

Well, the birthday came and went and we had a great time. I mean, it is really hard to complain about having 2 parties. We had a great time at both - Friday night with the friends and Saturday afternoon with the family. What a lucky girl! What did I give my wife for her 30th? Well, my wife has been sleeping with the same teddybear since she was one year old. I decided to take a black and white picture of him and then have it framed at our friend's framing shop. It came out awesome. I don't have a picture of it right now, but I will put it up later this week.

The new pizza place by our house finally opened last week, Pizza Schmizza. It is awesome and in fact, I went there again today for the second time. They have a great variety of interseting pizzas including the yummy steak and red potato pizza I had today. They also have breadsticks which are closer to loaves of bread and you can dip them in some AMAZING alfredo sauce. Overall, I am very happy with this place and will probably become a regular stop.

Today, work started on a backyard which is being professionally landscaped. Bascially, we are not outside yard work people so they are making low maintenance. I'll put up some "before" pics later this week.

Thursday, I am going to steal an idea from Alien and do a contest for a prize. I just bought Con Air on BluRay so I am getting rid of my DVD version, minus the UPC code I am cutting off to get $$ back for upgrading. The winner will get the DVD shipped to them. So that everyone has a fair share, I will tell you when it is posted. It is due to be posted Thursday at 5PST/8 EST. Bring your movie knowledge!

Happy 30th to my beautiful wife!

Yup, my wife is the big 3-0 today! For a few more months, I can say that I am sleeping with an older woman in her 30s! Today, we are having a party here at our house with all of our friends. It will be full of pizza, board games, Wii, Rock Band, etc. Should be a great time. Tommorow, we are having a party with all the family members. So, she gets 2 parties! What more can a girl ask for? I guess not being sick on her birthday would help, but what are you going to do? Happy Birthday, love...