UAB 24, Texas 21

Dear Pete Carroll,
Call me.

Todd

- I just decided to play this for fun. Too bad I didn't put Texas on my schedule instead of Iowa State.

UAB 56, Rice 7

Now that's more like it!

01-07-2006

Short but sweet tonight. I've got UAB on the PS2 and another disc of The Wire in from Netflix:

- Best: Gunga Din. The epitome of an old school adventure movie.

- Favorite: The Tall T. Randolph Scott? Yes.

- Worst: Kaazam. The single most annoying kid in a movie ever.

01-06-2006

Movies:
- Best: Sin City. Originally I was going to put this in the "favorite" column, but after buying the DVD and watching some of the extras I realized that this is a real achievement in film. That sounds a little hyperbolic, but most of the movie was shot in a tiny studio while everything was green screened in, including some of the actors. For example, Mickey Rourke and Elijah Wood have a fight scene, yet neither one of them were on set at the same time. It was incredible to see how it was all put together and then watch it and realize how much was being done digitally in the editing room. I'm blown away.

- Favorite: Shaun of the Dead. Pretty silly, and it started to drag near the end, but the humor was in the details and there were so many little throw away gags that you couldn't keep up with them.

- Worst: Analyze That. Why was this sequel made? Did people actually like Analyze This enough to deserve a sequel? Cause I don't remember it being all that funny. This sure as hell wasn't. I really hope De Niro is happy with himself.

Observations:
- Bama finishes in the top ten and the world of college football is starting to make sense again. Cute Sports points out that Wisconsin is still ranked lower than the Auburn team they flat out whipped monday in the final AP poll. For the most part I'm pretty well in agreement with the standings, though the Wisconsin slight is hard not to notice. Other weird rankings: How did Oregon come in at #12? They were a punk team coasting on a cupcake schedule (I thought SEC teams were the only ones lame enough to schedule D-1AA opponents?) and were exposed by an underrated Big 12 squad. Sound familiar? I'd almost flop them with Louisville and say that's about right if Louisville wasn't such a punk team themselves. Own the Big East indeed...

- I'm going to Sumo tonight to celebrate Steve's birthday. I gotta tell you, I'm not so into these crazy restaurants. I'm more at home at Waffle House or IHOP, but whatever. Hopefully it will be good and Donna won't make us sit at one of the Japanese chefs making lame jokes tables. I hate those guys. The couple of times I went to visit a friend at Furman he always made us go to a Japanese steakhouse and it was always lame, but those crazy Furman kids ate it up! They were weird anyway. One of them was a Spreadhead, so that should tell you something.

- The plan for next weekend is to visit Robin in Atlanta since I haven't been able to do so in quite some time. We're going to Dad's Garage friday night to see Dr. Frapple, which I am very excited about. I've seen their Theater Sports thing a few times and it's always been hilarious, but it will be nice to see something new. At some point I'll have to make my way to T-town since both Hack and Nico are now residents. Hopefully we can get together for a Bama basketball game or something soon.

UAB 34, Iowa State 35

The dream is dead! As many sacks as I took you'd think I was playing with Bama's O-line. All of my scores except for one were results of huge yardage from direct snaps to Burks or QB draws.

I am not afraid to cross the streams!

Take a wild guess about what the snooze on my alarm was set on this morning. Go on. Guess. Give up? 30 MINUTES! Does anyone have a good recommendation about ghost proof electronics? I'm going to Target (which is pronounced TAR - GET, not TAR-ZHEY, which isn't funny, shut up already!) tonight to buy a new one, but if anyone knows a special store that sells anti-supernatural tampering items I'll go there instead.

UAB 27, Troy 10

Next up, Iowa State. Which wasn't actually on the 2005 UAB schedule, but I decided to sub in a D-1A team for D-1AA Jacksonville State. I held the down button to select a team and shut my eyes, so Iowa State it is.

If I ever get off this killin' floor...

...I'll never get down this low no more...

I'm fairly certain that the movie Hostel is being re-enacted by the old woman downstairs. What is she doing to make all that noise?! How many bodies are the police going to bring out of there?!

01-05-2006

- Best: In a Lonely Place. Bogey's best performance. I was totally floored by his anti-hero routine, it was that unexpected. I mean, he could sneer with the best of them, but he was repulsive in this. Brilliant.

- Favorite: Win a Date With Tad Hamilton!. I never in a million years would have thought I would like this, but it was absolutely hysterical. The supporting cast (especially Gary Cole) deserves most of the credit for getting the funniest one liners and keeping things interesting. Left to the main characters it would have only been okay, but with all the other elements it's great.

- Worst: Jason X. This one broke my heart. I'm not sure how much budgeting went into this but it just looked cheap, and the entire score was this lame, tinny, faux electonica pile that sounded like it came from one of those cheap-o casio keyboards you can get at the grocery store.

It's only gonna make you love me more...

Congratulations to Shaun Alexander. Just like he did for Bama during the '99 season he's carried the load for Seattle and truly deserves this. Selfishly I hope Seattle cuts him loose after the season is over and he signs with Pittsburgh. I don't know about salary cap issues and all that (one more reason I prefer college ball), but if Bettis decides to retire Alexander would go along way towards continuing the power running tradition. Fingers crossed.

I'm a Cherry Ghost

The ghost that haunts my apartment has a new fun hobby: Screwing with my alarm clock. I have it set for 6:30 and I hit snooze five or six times to get up around 7:30 because the snooze button is set for 10 minutes. So this morning I hit it a few times and when it goes off again I look at the clock and it says 8:00. While it's possible that I just kept hitting snooze for another half hour, I didn't think that was the case. Turns out the snooze setting had been changed to 30 minutes. I'm sleeping in the car tonight.

UAB 24, Tennessee 19

I'm starting off UAB's season right this time. Take THAT Watson!

01-04-2006

Best: Million Dollar Baby. Maybe it isn't the second best movie I've ever seen, but it's the second best this year. I remember sitting in that theater completely wrapped up in this. Schopenhauer might be a bit of a downer from time to time, but his whole philosophy of aesthetics is pretty much the only thing that actually struck a chord with me at UAB. Million Dollar Baby had that effect on me, it totally lifted me from my own life and for a little over two hours there was nothing else but what was going on on the screen. Eastwood is one of my favorite actors/directors and has made some damn good pictures, but I doubt he could ever top this one.

Favorite: Beat the Devil. The weirdest old movie I've ever seen. Imagine if Wes Anderson were making movies in the 50s, and you might come up with something like this.

Worst: Hard Promises. Awful, awful, awful. Has the same problem as Haiku Tunnel in that the characters are so repulsive that you can't even stand to watch it. There isn't a single redeeming quality to be found among any of them, so how are you supposed to sit and care about what happens? If a meteor were to hit that town and kill everyone in it the world would be a better place.

- I think I'll go with deliciously evil.

Because I am 8 Update:

Most times I remain supremely annoyed with 99% of our customers, but every now and again something comes along to brighten even my mood. Usually it's someone wanting a crazy nickname on their jersey. Today's? Dung Beetle. Even better? I had to look it up online to check the spelling, leading me to this wonderful article. Go read it and tell me you didn't giggle every time "dung" appeared. I dare you.

01-03-2005

- Best: La Dolce Vita. The more I think about it, the more I believe this is the second best movie I've ever seen. I made a big fuss over Million Dollar Baby, but a lot of that came from the emotion of the moment (coupled with seeing a stinker like Elektra shortly afterwards) and I've settled down enough to place it near the top, but not that high. My contrarian spirit made me want to dislike this movie since it's so important and blah blah blah, but despite that I fell completely in love with it. Marcello Mastroianni is supposed to be the focus of the picture, but I saw more in the supporting cast and their tales and circumstances while he simply drifted along. It's not quite as beautiful to look at as an Antonioni (L'Eclisse, especially) picture, but what little Fellini lacked in style he made up for with story telling.

- Favorite: Anchorman. Knowing full well that I was wasting precious time, I wound up watching this at least five times this year. I love comedies above all else (except maybe westerns) so there are going to be a lot of silly movies listed under favorites, and this is the king of them all. The 40 Year Old Virgin comes pretty close to this hilarity wise, but there's no topping it. Well done, sir.

- Worst: Haiku Tunnel. Words cannot describe how terrible this movie is. It's the reason I no longer have IFC.

01-02-2005

- Today has been an excellent day. Bama ends the season on a high note, Auburn reminds us all of why they will always be the red headed stepchild of Alabama football, and I eat dinner at the Waffle House while reading a book and then listen to Johnny Cash on the way home. Yes, things are starting to get back to normal around here, and I like it.

- I'm starting to fear I'll wind up accidentally completing my joke goal of gaining 100 pounds this year. I used to eat at Waffle House every night (that's not hyperbole, it was literally every night) right after high school and wound up gaining most of my freshman 70 before even starting classes at UAB. I was a slim 140 at the end of high school and then topped out at my fighting weight of 210 somewhere around Christmas that year. When I went to the doctor the other day they weighed me at 196, which is about 10 lbs heavier than usual but I fluctuate between 180 and 200 all the time so it wasn't that big a deal. But still, that's 10 lbs heavier than usual. And now here I am, thinking about going back tomorrow night. Must. Eat. Healthy. If I can watch 1000 movies, I can manage to stay away from country ham.

- Starting tomorrow I'll start posting some thoughts on movies that have stood out this past year. I went through about half the posts this morning and I've really seen some good stuff that I'd like to take in again. I've regretted this whole endeavor for most of the past two months, but looking back I'm glad I did it. There are so many movies that I've enjoyed but would never have watched if it hadn't been for this, and it's been one hell of a conversation topic wherever I go. Maybe I should build that sail boat this year instead of learning Russian, just to have something to talk about at parties.

Offense sells tickets...

Taught an offensive mastermind about defense and then won on the ugliest field goal I've ever seen. There couldn't possibly be a more fitting ending for Bama's season. Roll Tide.

Update: This is shaping up to be a pretty good year so far.

01-01-2006

Where to begin...

- I'll start putting together a couple of lists over the next few days (Best, Favorites, Worst, etc.). I just went through a few random posts and there are some out there that I had completely forgotten about so I want to go over the list to make sure I'm not leaving anything out. As it stands, Million Dollar Baby is still the best and Haiku Tunnel is still the worst, but there are plenty of others that stand out in my mind so I'll go back over them.

- I'm still all about watching some movies. It seemed weird this morning when I woke up and realized I could do whatever I wanted, and my first instinct was to put in a movie. Not something new, just a DVD that I've been wanting to see for awhile. I actually wound up watching The Fantastic 4 again yesterday morning while I was waiting on the mailman to deliver my last two selections from Netflix, and once I was done with the 1000 I popped in Office Space and watched most of it before going to Dwight and Krista's. I ordered both Million Dollar Baby and The Upside of Anger from Amazon friday afternoon and those are two that I've been excited about seeing again so hopefully they'll arrive soon. I guess that really isn't that weird. Even before all of this I'd been known to spend entire Saturdays at the theater or staying home and watching four or five movies in a row, it's just this time around I HAD to watch them instead of doing something else, where as before I was watching them for fun.

- I'm going to have to do some serious laundry and grocery shopping this afternoon. I have Coke and condiments in the fridge, and no towels. The past three weeks have not been kind.

- As of now the 2006 goal is to learn Russian. I've always wanted to see St. Petersburg and I'd like to be fluent enough to take care of myself there and not depend on a tour guide or the hope that someone nearby speaks American and can help. I'm going to wait a few weeks before really getting into it though. Sarah bought me a book and I saw what looked like a pretty good CD course at Barnes and Noble so pretty soon I'll be broadening my cultural horizons while driving back and forth to work.

- Speaking of Sarah, she made me a trophy (of sorts):
















It's a major award!