Tonight on HBO

At 8:00pm HBO showed"The Wrestler", one of the better movies I've seen in years. Immediately following "The Wrestler"? Welll.... "Fool's Gold".

Tomorrow for dinner I'm going to eat a filet mignon and then have a tube of expired cookie dough for desert.

The Greatest Beatles Songs Ever

My friend J.P. has recently been listening to more Beatles music mostly due to the re-release of their albums. One day he asked me "what are your top 25 Beatles songs?", a question that is impossible to answer. But I tried. It was painful but I was able to start with a list of nominations (60 or so songs) and whittle it down to 25.

I then I asked my oldest brother, Will, to compile his top 25 songs.

Between my list, J.P.'s, and Will's.... here are the only songs that appear on all three. Which, of course, means they are the greatest songs from the Beatles:

• And Your Bird Can Sing
• Dear Prudence
• Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds
• Rain
• Something
• Strawberry Fields Forever

That's it! There were 75 songs and only these 6 showed up on three of our lists. Also something to note: Not a single Paul song was listed by all three of us. But George's "Something" made it.

Argh Matey, Shut Ye Mouth or I Will Pirate This Movie

(note: I am aware that this is FAR from a creative topic. It's just on my mind.)

On Friday it was made abundantly clear to me why people pirate DVDs. It has nothing to do with the high ticket prices, the inflated prices of Milk Duds, or even the long lines at the box office. It has to do with people.

Friday night Erin and I went to see "She's Just Not That Into You" Yeah, yeah, yeah... it's a chick flick but I enjoy a good chick flick once in a while. I'm not ashamed. I like the stand up comic who wrote the book and I'm a fan of a lot of people who were in this movie. I was NOT, however, a fan of the people who sat behind us. As soon as this line of women sat behind us Erin and I just KNEW it was going to be annoying and we would be relocating soon.

During a preview for the upcoming movie "Obsessed" we were treated to the sound bite of "Oh, Beyonce just went crazy on that girl. We have GOT to see that." (note: this movie looks terrible).

About 15 minutes into the feature we had to get up from the seats we picked out 10 minutes before the start of the previews and move to the 4th row to watch the movie from the lower left hand corner of the screen. We enjoyed it fine enough but it just sucks that people can't keep their mouths shut. And we, two people with manners, need to up and move to enjoy a movie.

Maybe I'm getting old and cranky but according to most of my friends this talking-during-the-movie fad has reached an epidemic scale. I know of a few people who have completely given up on going to the movie theaters no matter how excited they are about seeing a particular flick. And I can see why. Now, if I have a chance to watch a movie in the privacy of my own home or have to sit in front of a bunch noodnicks sharing their opinion on the clothes Ben Affleck might be wearing... I'm thinking my couch is a much better place to see a movie.

Gratefully, there is a theater near us that runs more independant movies. We have seen "Man on Wire", "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead", "My Kid Can Paint That" and "Thank You For Smoking" at this theater and have had a wonderful experience at all of them. We saw "Juno" at the big mega-plex by the mall and had to listen to two teenagers argue about something retarded the whole way through despite several requests to them to be quiet.

If Hollywood is so worried about losing money to pirated copies of their films... stop. Instead of investing dollars into technology to keep DVDs from being copied, hire people to sit in the theaters and get chatty people to shut their rude mouths. If you do that, I'll glady give you $10 a ticket.

South Park Giveth and Then Taketh Away

As has become tradition with my brother Kevin and I, if a new series of South Park DVDs are out he gets them for me for Christmas (or when fitting, a birthday). This year, I received season 11 of South Park for Christmas.

This year, however, it was an extra special set. You see, the unthinkable happened. On disc 2 there was an episode I had never seen! Episode 8 of season 11 "Le Petit Tourette" apparently aired at midnight due to the high number of obscenities in the dialogue. Cartman decided to fake having Tourette's Syndrome so he could curse whenever he wanted.

I was in complete shock of this. I wasn't even upset with myself for missing an episode, which is something I that normally would engulf me in rage. I assumed my DVR settings missed this because of the change in air time.

Oh it was a post-Christmas miracle! This must be what it's like for a zoologist to discover a new species of fish!

However, on disc 3 yet another unthinkable occurred. As all nerds do, I was listening to the commentary by the creators on each episode. The three episode arch "Imaginationland" was already released on its own on DVD and on those DVDs Trey Parker and Matt Stone did commentary, so this commentary was far from complete.

Thus, I must at least rent those episodes to get the full experience.

Don't judge me.

Why So Serious

I recently realized that when people tell me that they think "The Dark Knight" was just ok, I at first allow them to keep their opinion. However, when they start to give me reasons I find myself instantly debating them, hoping to convince them to share my opinion that the movie was indeed great. You see, their opinion if wrong.

Some points that have been mentioned that I have argued against:

1) Batman's voice is ridiculous - I agree, but I think it a very minor thing in the movie. If a characters voice is the worst part than you are too picky.
2) It's too dark. Not in nature, but it's hard to see stuff because it's dark. - Stop being a cry baby people and get some glasses.
3) Too many characters - Bah, you're clearly not paying attention.
4) Joker sounds like Andy Rooney - I never noticed this but now that it has been mentioned I notice a similarity. But, it's not enough to distract me from the movie.

I am petty.

LOOOONG overdue update

Yeah, I haven't written a thing in a very long time. But, some things have changed that caused my focus to shift from wasting time to.... other stuff.

1) I got a new job. It was a long time coming and long over due. No longer do I drive 50 miles for work!

2) I've been doing big house projects. Had most of the floors (more to follow) re-finished, and am in the process of replacing all of the trim and baseboards. I was hoping to have it finished by Decemeber but this project has immediately halted because...

3) I need to rip up the rest of my rugs and have the rest of the floors re-finished. why? Because with the new trim, the carpet will no longer lay down flat.

I imagine that all of these house projects will be done sometime before I'm 80. Every time this happens I wonder why I didn't get a condo. I suppose it's because you can put more back into a house but it seems like I'll never get to a point of completition. I suppose this is par for the course in home ownership.

Awesome.

Mix Tape Mother Load

With a couple of days off before I begin my new job I gave myself some mini-projects to do. Tonight was putting up a wall paper border along the top of my bathroom. Normally, when I do projects like this I have my Zune on random, blasting throughout the house. Tonight, however, I am without my precious Zune as Erin is borrowing it for a trip to NYC and back for work.

But then the musical gods smiled upon me and I came upon a bag of old mix tapes that were primarily made by me, or my brother Will. Luckily, I have a small stereo with a tape deck that still works! Most of these tapes were without cases or track listings which made picking one out even more fun. I threw a random tape in and based on the first 2 notes I remembered the year, season, and what I was doing when I made it. I recalled the summer of 1998, I made it for basic time wasting and driving around, and I was camp counselor at the time. The first song was a cover of "Build Me Up, Buttercup" by the Goops from the Mallrats soundtrack.

The next tape I listened to was one my brother made for me during my senior year of college that had a theme. It started off loud and fast ("I Am a Tree" by Guided By Voices) and then proggesively got more mellow as Side-A ended. The beginning of Side-B started mellow (with Liz Phari's "Girl's Room") and then closed out with the kick-ass song "Debaser" by the Pixies.

As great as mix CDs are for their ease and sound quality, nothing will replace the fun and challenge of filling up two 45 minute sides of a cassette tape. Each side with a plan, purpose, and approach.

A side note: this book is about a guy using mix tapes to drive his memoir. It's a good, fast read that is also very heartbreaking. "Love Is a Mix Tape" by Rob Sheffield.