THOMnottom

I generally don’t hate many sports teams no matter how good they get or how often they beat my teams. I mean, there are some that are evil incarnate, but for the most part I simply cheer on for good games and hope that rival teams lose. But I make a strong exception int the case of the LA Lakers. I have never despised a team so much. They are full of such utter arrogance and disrespect towards the rest of the league. It was an absolute delight to seem them completely humiliated on their home court by the Spurs.

Come on. Phil Jackson is such a prick, claiming one minute to be some kind of Zen master and then turning around and making fun of his opponents the next. Shaq is the worst of them all. He will unfortunately go down as one of the greatest players in the game when he should actually foul out of every game by the half. Make me 7’2″ and 350 pounds and I’ll dominate the lane, too. Kobe is someone whose skills I actually admire, but talks so much trash he irritates me. The guy’s from Philly, I’d love to be a fan of his!

At this point in time I don’t really care if the Sixers advance because at least the Lakers are gone. I really liked Mike Kahn’s breakdown of why they failed. He makes a lot of good points, and so did some of the fans on the message boards. It’s good to see a crapass “dynasty” go down!

P.S.(I really do want the Sixers to advance. Me and my roommate decided we’d get tix to see them play the Nets if they do!)

I forgot to mention this film the other day as I haven’t written lately. Personal Velocity is an odd film to watch and ponder. It’s broken up into three relatively unrelated segments that each tells the story of a woman trying to overcome difficulties in her life, whether self-imposed or a product of her environment. There is Delia, trapped in an abusive relationship, Greta, who ponders a new career that could change her whole life, and Paula, a runaway contemplating fate after escaping a tragic accident.

This is a film that has the feel of a book – largely due to the rather heavy narration. Often that type of narration hampers the flow of a movie and acts as nothing more than an explanation for those who can’t follow the plot; however, in this case, the voice over is one of a poetic guide merely showing us what lies before us – forcing the audience to draw their own conclusions. Such a demand upon the viewer is important in Personal Velocity as the stories do not necessarily paint the picture you might expect.

Overall I would say this was a beautiful, personally-introspective film that earned it’s accolades and is well worth the time spent watching it. I’m not sure if that’s a 4 or 5 star or 1 and a half thumbs or what kind of a rating. I’ll have to figure that out later.

Forget to mention – X-2 rawks! I mean, that pretty much goes without saying. It’s an awesome action flick that totally lived up to it’s predecessor. I’m a big X-Men fan, and I was so excited by the original and how well they actually portrayed the comic book. These movies aren’t classics that will be preserved for future generations, or anything like that. What they are, is a whole lotta fun. The opening scene with Nightcrawler was just beyond cool. And the quick shot of Colossus transforming was everything I hoped for. But of course, the best parts were the fights with Wolverine. Hugh Jackman fits the part so well. And yes, there are some grey areas where things don’t completely match the comics or don’t even come close, but it’s forgivable. I mean honestly, when my biggest complaint is that Colossus didn’t have a Russian accent (for his maybe 4 lines), they didn’t do too bad. Go see it. Now! I mean it!!

Star Spangled Ice Cream – The names are kinda funny, but I’ve heard the flavors are lame compared to B&J.

Words fail. Brain shuts down. ARGH!!! It’s not like I was expecting much, but this movie was so terrible. It was mildly scary at certain points, but mostly just laughable. I’m serious about words failing – I planned on using the word retardation, but that simply isn’t strong enough. It’s more like horetardousable. I don’t know what that means, but I’ll figure it out. For now, the definition is any movie with the name Darkness Falls.

So many holes. Such a horrible script. Why the tooth fairy, why?!?! Something coming out of the dark is a cool idea and looks real nifty – why not just make it the giant rat from Chuck E. Cheese’s (is his name actually Chuck?). I honestly want to poke my eyes out in retribution for having watched the whole movie. How the hell could this stupid witch grab a guy next to a lighthouse light, yet be afraid of a little glow stick? Is it that difficult to not look at something in the dark? Why is the 24 year-old town hottie still hung up on the psycho 9 year-old boy next door? Aren’t there any other women in the town, besides the bitches in the nut house? Why couldn’t this have been rated R? Maybe then we could have at least seen Emma Caulfield (who certainly isn’t 24) naked.

Why the hell would you call your town Darkness Falls? I mean, why not just call it Bad Town, Murder City, or Evilville? I try to ignore simple problems with most movies – you can shoot holes in any plot, especially horror flics – but sometimes you just have to say “What is wrong with these people?!?!” You live in a creepy town with a twisted name and some demented old history complete with a curse. So what do you do? You buy a house with a mile long hallway and very few lights – which you don’t bother turning on to check for monsters. Ok, maybe that last part is a little more acceptable, but if I ever have kids I’m gonna make full-blown monster protection suits and have proper procedures for checking their rooms. I sure as hell don’t want to be the parent who ends up finding out that the monster under my kid’s bed is the one that’s actually real.

And one more thing – you live in Darkness Falls? Get a damn backup generator!! I’ve never seen a town that has more electricity problems (or sells so many crappy flashlights). Makes me wonder what kind of problems they have in Buttzville, NJ…

“Get out from under the bed, there’s nothing to worry about.” (Growl) (Screech) “OK, let’s stay under the bed.”
– Emma Caulfield, Darkness Falls

It’s been far too long. I had trouble getting tickets to the last Pearl Jam tour, so I skipped it. I swore it would never happen again. Last night I got to see them at Nassau Coliseum. My sixth show, but the first in 4 and a half years. They were so awesome. I wish I could be a tad more … descriptive … but words fail me. They are, without a doubt, the greatest band I’ve ever seen. Everyone I’ve taken to shows with me has agreed that their live shows have no comparison.

Opening with “The Long Road” just completely got me in the mood. I was worried about the seats I got for me and my sister because I got them so late, but we had no problem seeing anything. Unfortunately, the sound wasn’t that great – it gets muffled in the back seats by the overhang. Eventually we walked down to the railing at the front of the section and watched the last hour and a half of the show from there. Nobody bothered us – it was great.

It’s so tough to choose highlights because there were so many great moments. “Even Flow” was probably the best version I’ve ever heard of that song – they continued rocking for well past the normal end of the song. The crowd was screaming along with all of their classics, like “Alive” and “Animal.” The major highlight of the evening is that they played “Crazy Mary”. It’s a Victoria Williams song that they covered for the Sweet Relief album and I never thought I’d hear it live. What an amazing performance. Oh yeah, “Betterman” was absolutely beautiful.

And the best part of their shows is how much better all of their music sounds afterward. I just can’t get enough. And it’s getting me more into their latest album Riot Act. If you order the bootlegs, they even give you the ability to d/l mp3s of the show like an hour after it’s over. I’m going to wait until I know for sure if I’m going to any other shows (more tix go on sale Saturday) before I start ordering. Until then…

After installing Red Hat 9 on my box, my primary DNS server (which technically I shouldn’t be using) failed. Or was shut off. I really don’t know or care. It stopped doing things for me freely. Then I had problems with the secondary box couldn’t get my machines to do it either. Finally I decided to check out what free DNS servers were out there. I ended up choosing www.Public-DNS.org by Purified Data dot Net. Aside from having the lamest names I’ve seen on the net, the service is working. After a weekend visiting my parents I was able to get everything back up and running.

This is actually the first chance I’ve had to see if my site survived the upgrade. It did! Now I can die happy… Just kidding.

The links just keep on coming. This one is just bizarre. It’s what you do when you find weird stuff from the 70’s in your parents’ basement.

The Sam Goody in town has this one really cool guy that works there. Big, scruffy, long unkempt hair – looks like either a sci-fi geek or a metal fan. Probably both, but we got to talking way back when I picked up the second season of Star Trek: TNG. We chatted a while and he gave me the whole inside scoop on the upcoming Deep Space Nine DVD sets, which got him real excited.

Today, I stop in to pick up (what else?!?!) the new Family Guy collection. When he sees me, he tells me how dissappointed he is that I didn’t reserve it 🙂 After we talk about a few other releases he’s forced to actually help another customer. After answering a few questions he walks over to where I’m standing and says “Somedays I just want to die,” and then proceeds to grab a Drumline DVD for them. I almost hit the floor.

Now it’s time for me to enjoy The Family Guy and digital cable during this beautiful day!